How Folarin Balogun has become the most important player in Ligue 1

Robin Bairner

• 16 Mar 2023 05:55 CDT
• 8 min read

Reims have been in the news a fair bit lately. They are on a 19-match unbeaten run in Ligue 1 - that’s half a season’s worth of games! - 18 of which have been overseen by Will Still. The 30-year-old Englishman is the youngest head coach in Europe’s top five leagues, and he is shining with the second-youngest squad in the league in terms of minutes played.

Still has garnered plenty of attention, but Folarin Balogun is the most important player in Ligue 1 since his 16 goals account for 46% of his side’s total tally. That is the highest proportion in the division.

The young striker spent most of his childhood playing for Arsenal’s academy and went on to make his first-team debut for the Gunners in 2020. However, he failed to establish himself in the first team, making just 10 competitive appearances before being sent out on loan to Middlesborough in early 2022.

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After half a season in the Championship, Balogun returned to Arsenal in the summer, but the signing of Gabriel Jesus meant that first-team opportunities were still unlikely for him. So, they agreed that another loan was best for all involved. This time, the 21-year-old striker was sent to ply his trade abroad for the first time in his career as he moved to Reims.

He is clearly having a great time in France, so let us take a closer look at his work there to try and predict where his future might lie.

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Top-class off-ball movement in a direct side

Before we dig into the intricacies of Balogun’s game, let us start by taking a quick look at his pizza chart to get a rough idea of his style of play.

We already know that Balogun scores lots of goals, but it is encouraging to see that his underlying xG figures closely match his returns. Stylistically, his low touch volume and high involvement in the penalty box suggest that he is a last-line striker (meaning he likes to always play on the shoulder of the last defender).

His heatmap backs this up, as his involvement is heavily clustered in and around the penalty area. Balogun’s overall involvement on the ball is so low that even the kick-off spot is highlighted as an area of activity!

This is not a problem for Reims, though, as their style of play does not require the striker to be too involved in their approach play. In fact, they are the fastest side in Ligue 1 based on Opta’s direct speed metric, which essentially means that they get the ball up the pitch most quickly on average.

With such a fast style of play, which also utilises a lot of counterattacks, what they need is a striker who poses a threat in behind. Balogun fits the bill since off-ball movement is arguably his greatest strength. A look at some of his goals from this season makes that quite clear.

The 21-year-old striker has a high top speed, but the key to his success is the timing of his runs in behind.

These couple of goals effectively sum up the playing style of Reims and Balogun really well. Still’s side get the ball from back to front very quickly and their striker perfectly latches onto the final ball before finding a finish.

On the point of finishing, it should be noted that Balogun is very comfortable getting shots away on both feet as these clips show.

It is partly through these clever runs in behind that Balogun has maintained an average of 0.61 non-penalty xG per 90 in Ligue 1 this season – the third-highest in the league. Another significant factor, though, is his very high shot volume. His average of 3.36 non-penalty shots per 90 is the fourth highest in the league.

However, when we adjust that statistic to account for his side’s lower possession average, we find that Balogun attempts 10.74 shots per 100 touches on average. This is the second-highest figure in the division, and it clearly suggests that he tends to pull the trigger whenever he gets a sight of goal.

His shotmap provides a visual depiction of that, as it is quite scattered for a striker.

However, his goals mostly come from high-quality chances in the centre of the box. This points to the fact that Balogun isn’t a particularly clinical finisher, so his great return of goals is largely down to the fact that he simply gets lots of shots away. Of course, his ability to do that comes from his off-ball movement, so this should not be seen as a slight of his goal-scoring.

Can Balogun make it at Arsenal?

Balogun has proven to be a good leader of Reims’ press so the defensive side of his game is no concern, but there are certain aspects of his in-possession game he might want to work on. Chief of those is his link-up play when he drops deeper with his back to goal. We have not seen much of this at Reims given their style of play, but if he is to make it at Arsenal he will need to become more comfortable while dropping into midfield and having a greater on-ball involvement.

The burning question of course is whether he will be able to replicate his Ligue 1 exploits in England. A look at his SciSkill development should be a good first step in finding the answer to that.

Clearly, the loan to Reims has done him a world of good so Balogun’s current SciSkill value has crossed 80, placing him close to the level of Eddie Nketiah according to SciSports’ model. This means he is at the level where he would already be a decent backup option for a top-level Premier League team and has the potential to compete for a regular starting place in the future.

However, Balogun will likely never reach the level of Gabriel Jesus, so unless he is happy to play second fiddle until the 25-year-old Brazilian decides to move on, his career would be best served if he moved elsewhere.

His spell at Reims has unsurprisingly garnered loads of interest from all over Europe, so he will certainly not be short of suitors in the summer. Based on his seemingly seamless adaption in France, the young forward should have no problem moving over to a new league again, so he should assess which club and deal is the right fit for him.

It should be equally interesting to monitor where he decides to place his international allegiances. Born in the USA with Nigerian roots and having grown up in England (and played for their youth teams), Balogun has three potential options and is expected to make a decision this year.

Regardless of where he finds himself in the future, there can be no doubt about the fact that Balogun already is a very exciting young striker with the potential and mentality to get even better, so he definitely is one to watch.