Who is Samu Omorodion and how might he fit at Chelsea?

Editor’s note: This article has been updated after Chelsea and Atletico Madrid agreed terms for Samu Omorodion to move to Stamford Bridge.

It is easy to see why Chelsea have agreed a deal for Atletico Madrid striker Samu Omorodion.

Their initial bid of €32.5million (£27.4m) plus add-ons was turned down but they appear to have got their man with a a £34.5million (€40m) offer.

The 20-year-old joined Atletico from fellow Spaniards Granada in August but is yet to play for them, having spent last season out on loan at another La Liga side, Alaves.

When comparing Omorodion to the leading strikers at Chelsea’s Premier League rivals, there are plenty of similarities. Manchester City’s Erling Haaland, the division’s most prolific and dominating forward, Darwin Nunez of Liverpool and Manchester United’s Rasmus Hojlund share certain traits with the Spain youth international, even if he can not be considered to be of their calibre… yet.

But if you put these attributes — tall, quick, and physically imposing, the prototype for the modern No 9 — into a spreadsheet of Europe’s top five domestic leagues and restricted the results to players under 21, Omorodion would be a standout among the names high on the resulting list.

That’s why Chelsea have opted to move for him this summer, a year early, in the hope that he will arrive as a second- or third-choice striker and can develop in west London.

So, who is he and what might he offer Enzo Maresca’s side?

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Omorodion was born in Melilla, an autonomous city of Spain that sits on the north African coast, surrounded by Morocco and a six-hour ferry ride from the Spanish mainland. Raised in Seville, he was rejected by Sevilla as a child and developed at AD Nervion, a local amateur club, where the president gave him a €5 bonus for every goal he scored to pay his bus fare.

While scouts from Sevilla and neighbours Real Betis attributed Omorodion’s dominance in youth football to his physicality, his coaches at Nervion saw an emerging talent with instinct and intelligence.

He got his break at 17, signing for Granada, and impressed in his first full season with their B team, scoring 14 goals in 29 games in Spain’s fourth tier. Then, after opening last season with a goal on his La Liga debut for Granada against them, Atletico bought Omorodion for €6million (£5.1m/$6.4m at current exchange rates) and immediately loaned the then 19-year-old out to Alaves.

At Alaves, based in northern Spain’s Basque Country, he scored nine goals in 35 La Liga appearances last season, his first in Spain’s top flight, as they finished 10th in the 20-team top flight.

“He’s a player with a privileged physique, imposing just looking at him,” said Alaves head coach Luis Garcia. “Big, strong, fast, wants to learn and improve. His movement into space is very good, and he wins a lot of duels. He needs to demand more of himself to become a really top player.”

Omorodion’s non-penalty expected goals (xG) of 0.52 places him in the 85th percentile among similar players in Europe’s top five leagues (meaning just 15 per cent were better). Scoring those nine goals from an xG figure of 11.5 suggests a slight underperformance but indicates potential for growth, which could come with time spent on the training ground. For comparison, Nicolas Jackson, Chelsea’s striker signing from La Liga (Villarreal in his case) last summer, scored 14 times from an xG of 18.6.

His exceptional pace — Spanish news outlet Marca claims he was among the fastest players in La Liga last season, with a top speed of 34.5km/h — has made him a constant threat to many teams in the division, and he uses his imposing frame to bulldoze through defences.

Here, against Almeria, Omorodion assesses Chumi and realises he can outpace the 25-year-old defender.

Instead of cutting in, he takes Chumi down the line, successfully getting past him. This forces goalkeeper Luis Maximiano to rush out and foul Omorodion.

Omorodion is a “fox in the box”, with excellent off-ball positioning in the final third.

He has an impressive habit of finding space inside the opposition box, which improves his chances of finishing or getting into better positions from which to score. This can force defenders to constantly adjust and react, creating confusion and opening spaces for other attackers.

Below is that goal he scored for Granada against Atletico at the start of last season.

As soon as Gonzalo Villar wins the ball back, Omorodion instantly considers his best move. Spotting Stefan Savic nearby, he distances himself by dropping back, creating space. Omorodion then signals for the ball to be played into that gap.

Before Savic can react, Omorodion exploits the room he’s made for himself, receives the pass and scores.

While Omorodion is excellent in open space, he is limited in the build-up phase — at this early stage in his career, he relies on service from team-mates and is not a primary creator.

He averaged only 0.81 progressive passes per 90 minutes (putting him in the seventh percentile) and created 1.49 shot-creating actions per 90 minutes, significantly fewer than Jackson (3.05) did for Chelsea last season. These are areas he would have to improve in under new head coach Maresca.

Still, Chelsea’s bids have suggested they were aware Omorodion is not yet quite at the level they require to lead the line for their first team.

The Spain Under-21 international, who is also eligible for Nigeria through his parentage, is a raw talent, but the attributes of a potentially dominant striker are all visible.

With David Datro Fofana, Romelu Lukaku and Armando Broja all still on the books, it is curious Chelsea were targeting a striker of Omorodion’s profile early in the window. However, under the ownership of Clearlake Capital and Todd Boehly over the past two years, the west London club have prioritised younger signings in the transfer market.

Omorodion is indicative of the specific profile Chelsea wanted. He is mobile, physically imposing, and can compete with burly Premier League centre-backs while being technical, and positionally fluid enough to fit into Maresca’s system.

While he does not yet excel in the build-up phase of attacks, Maresca’s experience working with off-the-shoulder strikers such as Jamie Vardy and Patson Daka at Leicester City last season suggests he can find solutions with attackers who are not seamless fits in his system.

Omorodion’s debut La Liga campaign, in which he impressed in a limited Alaves team mostly as a 19-year-old (he turned 20 on May 5), also marks him out as the kind of emerging talent Chelsea co-sporting directors Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley have been tasked with collecting in every position.

Chelsea’s move for Omorodion is consistent with the club’s broader recruitment strategy.

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(Top photo: Juan Manuel Serrano Arce/Getty Images)