When David Moyes was first appointed Everton manager back in 2002, his first transfer signing was a West African player from the French League as he snapped up Nigerian international Joseph Yobo from Olympique Marseille. So history could repeat itself if he buys Olympique Lyonnais’ Ghanaian international Ernest Nuamah.

Various outlets have reported the link and Alan Myers of Sky Sports states Everton are trying to bring in Nuamah with discussions ongoing after he was close to joining in the summer, but a deal could not be struck. What could the winger potentially bring to the Blues then?

Comparisonator’s Similarity tool calculates that Nuamah’s style of play is strikingly similar to a couple of former Everton targets. He is deemed to be a 96% match to both Gambian international wide man Yankuba Minteh and Mohammed Kudus.

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Minteh, 20, was understood to be keen to come to Goodison Park last summer in a proposed part-exchange deal for Dominic Calvert-Lewin with Newcastle United but with the two clubs unable to agree terms, he moved to Brighton & Hove Albion instead for £30million. Kudus, now 24, was wanted by Frank Lampard back in 2022 and Everton felt they were close to striking a deal with Ajax before Manchester United splashed out £82million on Antony and the Dutch outfit did not want to lose any more players from that area of the pitch.

Born in Ghana’s second city of Kumasi on November 1, 2003, Nuamah’s fledgling career started at the Right to Dream youth academy in his homeland before his time in European football kicked off at Danish side Nordsjaelland – the same path that Kudus took before switching to Amsterdam. Netting 20 goals in 49 games in Denmark – including 15 strikes in the 2022/23 season – Nuamah moved to Belgian side RWD Molenbeek on August 30, 2023 but was immediately loaned to their sister club Lyon with a purchase option worth €25million.

Both teams are owned by Eagle Football Holdings, headed by John Textor, who recently tried to buy Everton from Farhad Moshiri before The Friedkin Group came back in to strike a deal. After 33 games and three goals for Lyon in 2023/24, Nuamah completed a permanent transfer to join them for a reported €28.5m fee but in the final days of the summer window a €19m move to Fulham fell through.

Although terms were agreed and Nuamah passed a medical examination with the west London club, he disappeared during the final stages of proceedings due to a reported reluctance to leave Lyon. This prompted Textor to apologise for the situation that had led to the player feeling he was being forced out of the club and Nuamah has gone on to make 17 appearances in all competitions so far this term, scoring once.

However, like both Everton’s on-loan pair of fellow right wingers, Jesper Lindstrom and Jack Harrison, he has neither a goal or an assist to his name in league matches this season. Are there suggestions Nuamah might offer more than either of those two?

Comparisonator’s Me2Others tool allows us to look at Nuamah’s performance statistics from Ligue 1 this season to Lindstrom and Harrison’s in the Premier League. Out of the three of them, Harrison has the highest expected goals (xG) on 0.12, having missed several golden opportunities in December alone, with Lindstrom on 0.09 and Nuamah on 0.07. When it comes to playing in scoring attacks, there’s not much between Harrison on 0.18 and Nuamah on 0.17 while Lindstrom posts 0.07.

Lindstrom has been getting the most shots in among the trio with 1.27 per 90 minutes (0.4 of which are on target), while there is little to choose between Nuamah (0.83) and Harrison (0.82) with their on target figures being 0.17 and 0.18 respectively. Harrison has been doing the most dribble of the three on 2.41 per 90 minutes, 1.35 of which are successful; with Nuamah on 2.17 with 1.08 successful; and Lindstrom on 1.8 with 0.8 successful.

The Ghanaian does make more progressive runs (1.83) than the Everton pair though with Harrison on 1.47 and Lindstrom posting 1.07. When it comes to distribution, he has also been making more successful passes (12.5) than either Harrison (10.47) and Lindstrom (10.13) but he’s putting in fewer crosses (1.08) than both with Harrison on 2.41 and Lindstrom on 1.8 and they’re not as accurate either with his successful cross rate being 0.17 (6.9%), opposed to Lindstrom’s 0.73 (28%) and Harrison’s 0.65 (20%).

On face value, while Nuamah offers pace – something that hasn’t been quantified here – his numbers don’t suggest he would necessarily be a significant upgrade on what Everton have already got in what is a problem position for them with more end product required. The ECHO understands that Everton are interested in a lot of players in this transfer window but there is nothing solid to report on the 21-year-old at this moment in time and it might be prudent for the Blues to keep their options open.

*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.