Nottingham Forest agree deal to sign “prolific” star

Nottingham Forest have followed up their sensational Premier League campaign last season with what is shaping up to be an exciting summer of transfer business.

The Tricky Trees might not have signed as many players as they have in windows past, but in Dan Ndoye, Igor Jesus, and Jair Cunha, they’ve added some real quality to the side.

Moreover, while they have lost Anthony Elanga to Newcastle United, they’ve managed to tie Morgan Gibbs-White down with a new deal.

And now, if reports are to be believed, the club are about to sign a goalscoring forward who has been compared to Yoane Wissa.

Forest target their own Wissa

While it now looks like Wissa will probably be making his way to the North East this summer to join Newcastle United, it wasn’t that long ago that Forest were in the mix for him.

It’s easy to see why Nuno and Co might’ve wanted the Congolese ace to move to the City Ground, as he racked up a stellar haul of 20 goals and five assists in just 39 appearances for Brentford last summer.

However, fans shouldn’t be too down about missing out on the 28-year-old, as it looks like the club are now closing in on a forward who could be their own version of him.

At least that’s according to a recent report from the continent, who claims that Forest are now incredibly close to signing Arnaud Kalimuendo.

In fact, the Belgian journalist has revealed that the Gariabaldi have now “agreed” to pay Stade Rennais €30m – £26m – for the incredibly dangerous centre-forward and that personal terms are already sorted.

While the fee is still significant, this looks like a great bit of business from Forest, especially as Kalimuendo has been compared to the dangerous Wissa.

How Kalimuendo compares to Wissa

Now, there are plenty of clear and somewhat surface-level similarities between Kalimuendo and Wissa, such as the fact that they’re both goalscoring centre-forwards who play in one of Europe’s top leagues and look to be on the move this summer.

However, in this instance, the primary comparison stems from FBref, which has analysed players in similar positions across Europe’s top-five leagues and concluded that the Brentford star has been the tenth most similar forward to the Rennes ace over the last 365 days.

The best way to understand how such a conclusion was reached is to examine the underlying numbers where the pair ranks closely.

The metrics include things such as expected and actual goals, expected and actual assists, passes into the penalty area, successful take-on percentage, tackles and more, all per 90.

It’s clear from these similarities that the 23-year-old has the ability to become just as dangerous a striker as the Bees ace and that he does not shirk his defensive duties either.

However, away from the statistical similarities to the Premier League star, the other reason Forest should be going all out to sign the France U21 star is the fact that he was a lean, mean output machine last season.

For example, the Suresnes-born monster, whom talent scout Jacek Kulig described as being “one of the most prolific” players around, scored 18 goals and provided four assists in 34 appearances, totalling 2681 minutes.

That means he managed to average a goal involvement every 1.54 games, or every 121.86 minutes, which sounds like the sort of numbers which could help push Nuno’s side even further up the table.

Ultimately, while he’s not as well known in England as Wissa, Forest look like they have got themselves a seriously impressive striker in Kalimuendo and someone who could be their own version of the Brentford man.