Back in 2008 David Moyes embarked on a personal mission to Liege to seek out Marouane Fellaini and seal a deadline-beating deal but 14 years on, Everton are now battling to get one over on their long-time ex-manager and land another giant Belgian midfielder in the significant shape of Amadou Onana.
Revamping the Blues midfield has been a priority all summer and, while Goodison Park officials are understood to be in advanced talks to bring the club’s former mighty atom Idrissa Gueye back from Paris Saint-Germain, Onana, a man mountain who revives memories of Fellaini, has become their latest target as the look to hijack his proposed move to West Ham United, matching the Londoners' £33.5million offer.
The Lille player, to give him his full title, is called Amadou Zeund Georges Ba Mvom Onana. It’s a big name for a big man as Onana is a towering presence at 6ft 5in, representing the kind of stature in the department that Everton have not possessed since his compatriot Fellaini, and he only joined his current employers from German second-tier outfit Hamburg 12 months ago.
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Originally from Senegal, also the birthplace of former Premier League midfield colossi such as Patrick Vieira and the late Papa Bouba Diop, who was dubbed 'The Wardrobe', Onana moved to Belgium as a child, playing his youth football at Anderlecht, RWS Bruxelles and Zuite Waregem before progressing through the ranks at Bundesliga outfit Hoffenheim. Capped by Belgium at Under-17s, U18, U19 and U21 level, he was handed his full international debut by former Everton manager Roberto Martinez in a 4-1 home defeat to neighbours Netherlands on June 3, coming on as a half-time substitute.
So what kind of attributes might Onana offer? Comparisonator’s Similarity Comparison algorithm suggests there aren’t any players quite like him in the Premier League right now with Leicester City’ Boubakary Soumare the closest match at just 43%. Given Onana’s stature, it’s perhaps no surprise that he fares well in individual battles and when his numbers from Ligue 1 are compared to other deep-lying midfielders already competing in the English top flight last term, he’d be ranked third for offensive duels won with 4.63 per 90 minutes behind just Chelsea’s Ruben Loftus-Cheek (6.6) and Paul Pogba (5.61), formerly of Manchester United.
Despite only been ranked 27th for the number of defensive duels contested (8.06 with Leicester City’s Wilfred Ndidi first on 14.7), Onana jumps up to seventh for defensive duels won with 5.37, a category that Ndidi again tops on 8.34, ahead of Crystal Palace’s Cheikhou Kouyate (6.24) and Leeds United’s Kalvin Phillips (5.6), who has just moved to Manchester City for £45million.
As you’d imagine from Onana’s height, he also makes the top 10 for aerial duels won, in ninth place on 2.49 with West Ham’s Tomas Soucek best in class on 4.72. While the youngster’s passing still needs work, he’d only be 36th for successful passes on 34.99, less than half the figure of leader Rodri of Manchester City on 75.56, he does come in at seventh for key passes (0.94) suggesting that when he does distribute the ball, often he can make it count (Pogba was top here on 1.62).
Onana hasn’t been surrendering possession in dangerous areas though and he’d be fourth (0.2) in the chart for ball losses in his own half that led to a shot within 20 seconds (Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson was lowest on 0.07) and his industry off the ball places him ninth for successful defensive actions (13.03), just behind current Everton player Allan in eighth, with 13.07 (Ndidi was top on 18.31).
Not 21 until later this month, Onana is a similar age to Fellaini when he joined the Blues and is still younger than the likes of Anthony Gordon so he still represents a work in progress with potential rather than the finished article. But it seems at some stage, Goodison Park chiefs are going to have to take a chance on a prospect like this after largely squandering huge sums of money on more established names who have flattered to deceive under Farhad Moshiri’s ambitious but chronically under-achieving tenure.
Another central midfielder Matheus Nunes of Sporting CP claimed that Everton were interested in signing him last summer but “nothing happened”. Since then the 23-year-old has established himself as a regular in the Portugal team, earned rave reviews for his Champions League displays from Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola who described him as “one of the best players in the world right now” and if he does end up in the Premier League, clubs like Chelsea and Everton’s neighbours Liverpool are now reputedly in the mix with claims from Portugal this summer that the Blues were now out of the race.
It was a similar tale with another Portuguese League star in 2021 as the ECHO understands Everton tried to land Porto’s Luis Diaz, but with his compatriot James Rodriguez refusing to go back to his former club as part of the deal, they were hampered by Financial Fair Play restrictions and the winger subsequently moved to Anfield for £37.5million in January. Back in March, when giving his first interview as director of football, Kevin Thelwell outlined that the Blues need to be “very clear about what we recruit from this point on” so they could “build a team that’s a bit more consistent, a bit more stable and is also very clear about what their roles and responsibilities are on the pitch”.
That means that Everton need to start identifying a different kind of target. After a summer of largely cautious prudence so far, Moshiri now looks set to release the purse strings again and try and set the tone for a new era at the club under Frank Lampard with more youthful, energetic and hungry players than have gone before.
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.
A version of this article was originally published on July 10
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