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Fulham, Everton and Crystal Palace have all been linked with Lyon’s Ernest Nuamah - but would he be a sensible signing?
Right at the end of the summer transfer window, Lyon winger Ernest Nuamah - regarded as one of the brightest prospects in African football - was on the verge of signing for Fulham. The medical had been done, and an agreement was in place. Then Nuamah disappeared.
Shortly after he turned up again in France, Lyon owner John Textor apologised for putting the 21-year-old Ghanaian into a position in which he felt forced out of the club. Plainly, he didn’t want to leave just yet. It was a strange deal, anyway – he was reportedly signing with Fulham for €19m (£15.7m) having only just been permanently bought by the French side for a fee of more than £20m, having previously been on loan from a Belgian club, also owned by Textor, who supposedly signed him for roughly the same amount as the entire club turns over in a year.
Regardless, bridges were rebuilt and Nuamah returned to Lyon, where he has been in and out of the side all season. The club, meanwhile, has seen its debts mount to the point where it has been announced that they will be forcibly relegated to Ligue 2 unless they pay some of their creditors – which may explain the bizarre horse-trading that led to Nuamah coming close to a move to Craven Cottage, and which certainly explains why he's up for sale again now.
Nuamah may well not want to move, but he might not have a choice. Lyon and Textor need to find money fast, and a fire sale of their assets is one way to raise the required funds. Nuamah, who would be expected to cost around £15m once more, is one of the players who would fetch a higher fee.
As such, several clubs have been linked with a bid for the youngster, who was a product of the impressive Right To Dream academy (alongside West Ham’s Mohammed Kudus) and has 12 caps for his country already – according to French outlet Foot Mercato, for instance, Fulham could come back with another bid having seemingly forgiven his last-minute cold feet, while Everton and Crystal Palace are lurking as well. But does he make sense as a signing for all three sides?
Whether or not he was affected by the situation at the end of the summer, Nuamah has not had a great start to the season. He’s only made three league starts and hasn’t scored or set up a goal yet, having managed five goal contributions in 29 league matches since signing for Lyon at the start of the 2023/24 season. In other words, while he has a long road ahead of him and shows plenty of signs of promise, he isn’t likely to score a vast volume of goals in the Premier League from the get-go.
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A left-footed inside forward, what Nuamah does offer is a knack for finding space going forward, excellent dribbling, good technique and indefatigable running, with a willingness to track back and capacity for defensive work which exceeds most wingers. His decision-making and finesse in the final third needs work and he can’t be expected to lead an attack in need of extra goals, but if a team needs a player who will work hard down the wing to support the defence as well as providing a direct threat up front, then he looks like a sensible option for the near future who also has plenty of room for growth.
That could well be Fulham, if they don’t feel like their fingers have been burned after the summer. Nuamah could easily offer much of the same energy and off-ball work that Alex Iwobi has done in a similar role on either flank, and they are somewhat light on options out wide. Everton, similarly, aren’t blessed with depth down the right and Sean Dyche wants his wingers to be ready to track back and defend when required. Their direct counter-attacking style should also suit Nuamah, whose pace and ball-carrying skills allow him to get the ball or just himself upfield quickly.
Crystal Palace, the third team linked with him, are a slightly harder sell simply because of Oliver Glasner’s system. With a back three and two wing-backs, Palace’s inside forwards typically play a narrower role than Nuamah is used to. He could adapt, of course, but based on his playing style at Lyon, he may not be such a clean fit, and the learning curve may be higher – and because tracking back would play a lesser role, Palace fans may not immediately see his best current qualities.
Nuamah could easily prove to be a fine investment for the future for any of these clubs of course, and he has the technical qualities to become a first-rate wide forward – he just needs the experience to find the right option around the area more frequently, and perhaps to become a little less reliant on cutting inside at speed and to find other routes to goal. There is, however, no doubting his work ethic or his effectiveness in teams that want wingers working all the way up and down the field.
If money isn’t too much of an object, both Everton and Fulham look like very solid landing places for a talented player who has endured too much uncertainty in recent months. Whether he would be an immediate high-level contributor is unclear, but a fee in the region of £15m could look like a bargain in the not-so-distant future.
The question for either club is how much they can afford, under current circumstances, to take a shot on a player who probably doesn’t have the all-round game to be an immediate hit in the Premier League. That may not suit an embattled Everton side whose financial future isn’t entirely clear and who need goals and results now. Fulham, on the other hand, can probably afford to be that little bit more patient and back Nuamah’s talent in the long term. Let’s just hope that his last-minute rejection back in the summer was nothing personal…
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