Tolu Arokodare, the goalscorer who can’t finish
Can a striker be great if they can't keep shots beneath the crossbar?
Centre-forwards have dominated this summer’s transfer gossip. The soap-opera drama has kept the Twitter ITK’s happy, while the hefty sums in the headlines have pushed clubs to look for value in less fashionable markets. Step forward Tolu Arokodare, Genk’s goal machine.
The 24-year-old, affectionately referred to as ‘Tolu’, topped the Belgian Pro League’s goalscoring stats with 17 last season, without the help of a single penalty. Interest this summer has most notably come from Milan, Manchester United, and Fulham, all of whom want to add both his goals and enormous frame.
Yup - standing at 6’6”, Tolu is yet another gigantic striker linked with a big move this summer. As Kim McCauley pointed out earlier this month for The Transfer Flow, ‘give it to the big man and let him dominate’ has become a key trend in clubs preferences.
As a result, Tolu’s one-of-a-kind profile – and the big, gaping hole in his skillset – deserve a deep dive, as does the question of how his qualities would translate to more intense competition.
This is Tolu, the goalscorer who can’t finish.
Ashwin Raman is a writer and analyst who, at fifteen years old, was working for Dundee United. This summer, Analytics Twitter's favourite boy genius is writing a weekly column exclusively for SCOUTED. Highlights include him bigging up Noni Madueke moments before Arsenal swooped.
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- Arokodare’s movement and physique help him carve out lots of shots from dangerous positions.
When you pore through the footage, watching the ball reveals just half of what Tolu excels at. When Genk are in settled possession, Tolu is closer to the ‘poacher’ end of @sthsthburner’s dichotomy of ‘outlets’ and ‘poachers’. Rather than consistently offering himself as an option between the lines, he tends to hang around the last line, often slightly offside, on the far side of the pitch. Emblematic of @sthsthburner’s description, he makes himself ‘unavailable early’ to become a passing option later in the box.
