The La Liga star has Premier League experience
The days following the 2021 Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund takeover of Newcastle United were filled with rumours or wishlists linking the Magpies to Neymar, Kylian Mbappe, Gareth Bale and Philippe Coutinho, but 50-odd months later the reality has been Anthony Elanga, Jacob Ramsey and perhaps Jorgen Strand Larsen.
The Wolves frontman is the latest in a list of strikers targeted by Newcastle this summer that’s so long it could stretch down the coast to Stadium of Light, where they can actually sign more than three players in a window, and he’s apparently receptive to the prospect of stepping up to a Champions League side to replace Alexander Isak.
Despite going goalless against Manchester City in the 2025/26 Premier League opener, Strand Larsen showed he’s certainly capable of recreating, or even bettering, his debut season in England in which he scored 14 top flight goals and as the transfer window inches shut he’s an option that will be becoming more and more attractive to Eddie Howe.
Losing your star player this late in the summer isn’t ideal, but Wolves have the perfect opportunity to turn this into a positive by signing another elite marksmen who’s burst onto the market from Atletico Madrid while making a profit in the process - Strand Larsen’s international teammate and West Ham target Alexander Sorloth.
Sorloth the tailor-made Strand-Larsen replacement
This isn’t just a case of seeing that a hulking Norwegian striker could be leaving Wolverhampton and looking for the best 6’4” Scandinavian who’s still on the market this summer.
If that was the case, this would be an article explaining why Wolves should target Isak in the last 12 days of the transfer window, or a swap proposal sending Strand Larsen to Tyneside in his place. We know Newcastle fans wouldn’t like it, but he’s better than William Osula, right?
Rather, Sorloth matches Larsen’s profile perfectly, would cost less than the 25-year-old and is pushing for a move away from the Spanish capital.
Both players boast a shot accuracy in the past year that puts them in the top 10% of strikers in Europe’s top five leagues, Sorloth averaged 0.21 goals per shot to Strand Larsen’s 0.25, their average shot distance is 12.3 yards to 11.4, their (non-penalty) goals per shot is 0.21 to 0.19 and their goals per shot on target is identical at 0.41.
Writing from personal experience, when pulling up their shooting statistics side-by-side on FBRef.com, it’s easy to forget which set of numbers belong to which player and that continues into other areas of their game - neither player boasts a take-on success rate above 40% and their dribblers tackled per 90 minutes is a low and virtually indistinguishable 0.15 to 0.14.
Of course there are differences, some of them stemming from Sorloth playing for a team one penalty shootout away from the Champions League quarter-finals last season and Strand Larsen for a team that was second-bottom of the table in mid-December.
Sorloth boasted one of the best strike rates on the continent last season at a goal every 78 minutes in La Liga, he had a huge volume of touches especially in the opposition penalty area and was a force of nature in the air, winning 66% of his duels - better than Haaland.
Meanwhile Strand Larsen significantly outperformed his expected goals while Sorloth only broke even by that metric and the younger viking ended the season with twice as many assists.
Previous Premier League failure doesn’t define Sorloth
Sorloth’s previous crack at the Premier League was beyond forgettable - he grabbed a goal and an assist in the League Cup for Crystal Palace but never played more than 26 minutes in a single top flight game and was promptly shipped out on loan to Gent in January, then to Turkey the following season before signing permanently with RB Leipzig.
In an interview with TV2, translated by Molineux News, Sorloth blamed a mixture of ill-timed bad luck and injuries for his failure to fly as an Eagle, but the Norwegian has soared everywhere else he’s played and boasts a career strike rate better than a goal every two full games according to Transfermarkt.
And while he’s four years older than Strand Larsen, Raul Jimenez and Chris Wood last season were the latest in a long run of evergreen strikers to show that age is just a number in the Premier League.
West Ham were interested in the Norwegian last season before he opted for Madrid but reports from Spain suggest he’s fallen out with Diego Simeone this summer and the boss could be prepared to part ways if Atletico can recoup the fee of around €32 million (£27.7m) they paid 12 months ago, with the Hammers again reportedly considering a move according to Fichajes.
Meanwhile Wolves will surely want more than £40m for Strand Larsen if Newcastle do come calling, and if they can upgrade their striker (at least this season) while making a profit that would be a heist surely too good to turn down.
Continue Reading