Thread by @smarterscout

🚨 TRANSFER ALERT 🚨

We're going to need a whole thread for Seko Fofana, who's gone from Udinese to Lens for €10m. The former Manchester City U21 player is a French-born Ivorian international. Just 25, he has great numbers at CM by a Ligue 1 standard: 🔥

1/5 #RCLens

What's notable above is that Fofana has always had good defending quality and great ball retention, but his attacking output and defending quantity have risen steadily. He's excellent in ground duels both ways and an outstanding finisher. But he does take a lot of bad shots:

2/5

Fofana primarily covered the left side for Udinese, with mainly short passes until he got into the final third. There he drifted inside and was more likely to dribble. He's not aggressive enough as a defender to be a true box-to-box player, but he does drop back:

3/5

If we look for players in Europe's top five leagues with styles similar to Fofana's, here are the top matches. There are some great names here, mainly CMs with more of an attacking tilt than defending. Imagine a Sergio Canales with higher attacking output and fewer injuries:

4/5

Overall Fofana looks like a quality signing for Lens, and it's worth asking if a few other clubs have been caught sleeping here. At age 25, there's probably much more to come from him.

cc @LensoisComLive @lepubliclensois @LensoisInTheUSA @RCLens @RCLensEng

5/5