- 15 hours ago
Buyer beware! Stat-padding Osimhen already in danger of becoming a €120m flop
Robin Bairner
- 11 May 2024 19:47 BST
- 4 min read
Napoli striker Victor Osimhen will be on the move in the summer in what is likely to be the biggest transfer of the summer.
PSG are eyeing the Nigeria international to be a replacement for the departing Kylian Mbappe, while there are Premier League clubs sniffing around him, most notably Chelsea.
Napoli are adamant that they will hold out for his release clause of €120m, a fee that will make him one of the most expensive players in history.
READ MORE: Why Chelsea and Man Utd will support Real Madrid in Champions League final
STATS
Victor Osimhen
F (CRL)
Napoli
Victor Osimhen
F (CRL)
Napoli
Any suitors should beware: Osimhen might have scored 15 Serie A goals this season but dig into these numbers and his overall record begins to look weak.
Of his 15 strikes, 11 have come against clubs in the bottom six of the table. Six have arrived against teams in the bottom three.
He has not scored at all against a club currently in the top five and only has two goals against opponents in the top 10.
READ MORE: How many goals has Mykhailo Mudryk scored for Chelsea?
His struggles against even moderately strong opponents were highlighted on Saturday as he toiled during Napoli’s 2-0 loss against an apparently Champions League-bound Bologna side.
FootballCritic scored his performance as a 6.2 out of 10, with only two players in the Napoli side doing worse.
Osimhen a passenger when he’s not scoring
It has been a trend that has been constant when he does not find the net, underscoring the fact that he has been a goal-getter and not necessarily much more this season.
In matches that he has started but not scored this season, he has managed a score of just 6.5 or more on two occasions.
Of course, this is all well and good when finding the net against soft opponents, but when the chips are down, you need a €120m striker to be contributing in each and every match.
Some critics have put Osimhen’s mediocre form down to a lack of motivation after he was refused a move last summer, yet if this is the case, he is doing little to persuade these suitors to return in the forthcoming window - not for the type of price he is being touted for. FootballTransfers' Estimated Transfer Value of him is little over €70m - less than two-thirds of the price Napoli will sell for.
The 25-year-old has been a lot of hype this season and next to no end product when it matters – a Champions League goal against Barcelona a notable exception.
Move to Chelsea or PSG for nine figures in the summer and the expectations will be greater. He will not have the credit he earned at Napoli last season to fall back on, and he will be readily reminded of his €120m price tag.
Last term, he was indeed a player of this stature, but as he showed against Bologna, he is far from that man at this point in time.
Twelve months ago, Osimhen would have been seen as a surefire success. Now there has to be a question mark over him for the transfer fee that has been set.
