Octavian Popescu is the latest name to be linked with a potential transfer to Everton but what sort of attributes could he offer? It’s probably fair to say that many Blues aren’t yet overly-familiar with the Romanian starlet and the rumour comes with an air of intrigue.
HITC cites Digi Sport as reporting that Everton have opened talks with the 19-year-old winger but Gigi Becali, the owner of Popescu’s club FCSB (formerly Steaua Bucharest who won the European Cup in 1986 in the season that Howard Kendall’s champions were denied their place by a post-Heysel ban on English teams) is talking tough by slapping a supposed €150million price tag on his prize asset’s head while former Romanian international Ioan Andone has told the same outlet that the wonderkid is talented enough to play for Real Madrid or Barcelona.
A similarity comparison by Comparisonator calculates that West Ham United’s Algerian international Said Benrahma is the closest current Premier League player in terms of style to Popescu with a match of 68% ahead of Crystal Palace’s Ghanaian ace Jordan Ayew on 52% but the youngster’s statistics playing in his homeland this season making intriguing reading when placed alongside what stars are doing in the English top flight. When it comes to expected assists, Popescu’s figure of 0.43 per game would place him third among left wingers (81% of his outings have been in this position with 12% as a central attacking midfielder and 5% on the right wing) for expected assists behind just Manchester City’s Jack Grealish (0.48) and Chelsea’s Marcos Alonso (who records an identical figure to Popescu of 0.43).
While that might seem impressive at first glance, when it comes to actual assists, Popescu is way down in 22 nd place with just 0.09 per game with Everton’s Richarlison second on 0.25 behind the aforementioned Benrahma (0.34) who leads the way. On that score the youngster might still be a bit raw but he fares better on shot assists where he is sixth on 1.36 per game which tallies with him also being sixth for shots (2.38), just behind Everton’s Demarai Gray (2.41) in fifth.
When it comes to running with the ball, Popescu possesses a similar profile to the existing Blues in his position. His 5.87 dribbles per game place him sixth compared to those currently in the Premier League, slap bang in between Gray in fifth (6.16) and Richarlison in seventh (5.64) although he’s a little behind the pair for successful dribbles as he maintains his sixth place with 3.49 but Richarlison moves up to second on 3.65 while Gray is third on 3.59.
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Although Popescu, who has scored nine times in 32 league games so far this term, is placed at 13 for attacking actions (9.36) compared to second place Gray’s 10.73 and Richarlison’s 9.94, this improves to seventh spot for successful attacking actions (4.51) just behind fourth placed Gray (4.98) and sixth placed Richarlison (4.81). Might such similarities suggest that he could possibly be earmarked to be a younger replacement for one of them?
One area that suggests that Popescu seems more of a Frank Lampard -style wide man than the kind of wingers predecessor Rafa Benitez brought in is the way he puts the ball into the danger areas. The teenager doesn’t seem to go for old-fashioned wide deliveries given that he’s ranked down in 34 compared to current Premier League players in that position for crosses (1.11 per game) or successful crosses (0.17) but he still manages to be second only to Manchester City’s Phil Foden (0.89) when it comes to his 0.81 successful key passes per game, a figure that places him ahead of Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka (0.79).
- Comparisonator is a football data comparison tool from 271 professional leagues around the world which compares players and clubs by utilising over 100 different parameters. Click here for more details.
