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).
