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This January Callum Goodall and Jack Elderton have gotten together to profile one player a day from a list of players that West Ham could sign throughout the transfer window.

Callum Goodall is a data and recruitment specialist who you may know from his radar charts and megathreads on Twitter where he has produced an excellent scouting series taking a look at players that West Ham could, or should, invest in. We’re lucky to have him for now before he’s snapped up by the club itself.

Jack Elderton is a player performance analyst specialising in roles and tactics who has taken over production of the recently renewed KUMB Podcast. Here you can find Cal and Jack talking in more depth about West Ham’s form, tactics and transfers each week alongside our match reporter Chris “Wilko1304” Wilkerson.

Listen back to the latest episode here.



Bamba Dieng is a Senegalese striker currently playing for Olympique Marseille in Ligue 1. He has made 14 appearances in the league this season, scoring four goals.




Until recently, Bamba Dieng had been a complete unknown. It was only in October last year that he announced himself as a senior player at Marseille with a goal in a 2-0 win over Auxerre in the Coupe de France Third Round. But with limited opportunities after that and only 127 minutes of Ligue 1 game time secured across five appearances, it’s taken until this season for Dieng to really announce himself to the world.

Despite his continued role as a bit-part player for Marseille, manager Jorge Sampaoli has often preferred to use one of Arkadiusz Milik or Dimitri Payet as his central striker, Dieng has managed to regularly make an impact when selected. All of his goals this season have led to points with Dieng scoring both goals in Marseille’s win over AS Monaco and getting the opening goal in wins over both Stade Rennais and RC Strasbourg. It was his goal against Strasbourg that really got everyone’s attention though as the Senegalese executed a perfect overhead kick to score one of the best goals we’ve seen so far this season.

With that in mind, the most obvious place to start when assessing Bamba Dieng is his shooting. So far this season Dieng is averaging 3.17 shots per 90, which is 0.92 more than Michail Antonio is managing, ranking him in the top 10% of strikers in Ligue 1. Even more impressive is the fact that 53.1% of Dieng’s shots have hit the target, making him a much more accurate shooter than Antonio (35%). It’s not just a case of having the better shooting boots either, Dieng also boasts a superior aerial duel success rate (32.3%) when compared to Antonio (29.4%). Clearly Dieng’s low goal return isn’t because he can’t hit the target then, he does that more than half the time, but he has had problems when it comes to beating the man between the sticks. Despite being a more accurate shooter than Antonio, his goal conversion rate of 12.5% is actually worse (12.5% < 15%). In fact, the Senegalese forward ranks in the bottom 1% for finishing underperformance amongst all forwards to have played in Europe’s Top 5 Leagues in the last year. In that time, Timo Werner, a striker famed for his underwhelming form in front of goal, has averaged a -0.24 xG underperformance per 90, meaning he has cost his team a goal every four matches with his poor finishing. Dieng, on the other hand, has recorded a ridiculous -0.31 xG underperformance per 90, costing his team a goal every three games in the same period.

These metrics are hugely concerning but must be balanced by the fact that Dieng has improved on his finishing so far this season and has only underperformed in front of goal by -0.03 xG per 90 this term. Raw xG generation is an area where Dieng is also similar to Werner, as both players pose a huge threat to the opposition with their pace and excellent movement. Werner’s runs in behind have generated 0.51 non-penalty xG, or half a goal, per game for Chelsea so far this season, more than Antonio manages with his 0.35 npxG per 90 in the same period. But Dieng is virtually unmatched in this department, generating an absurd 0.72 npxG per 90 with his constant runs in behind opposition defences; putting him ahead of forwards like Erling Haaland (0.72), Kylian Mbappe (0.67), and Mohamed Salah (0.51) when it comes to creating goalscoring opportunities.




Clearly, the talent is there, it just remains somewhat unrefined, meaning that Dieng’s ability to occupy positive positions is often overshadowed by his spotty finishing and lack of creativity. And it’s this lack of creativity that is perhaps the weakest area of his game. Rather remarkably, the Marseille man is yet to generate any xA whatsoever this season and hasn’t connected a single pass to the penalty area or key pass yet in the 2021-22 Ligue 1 campaign (all three of his key passes came in the Europa League or at AFCON). His passing in advanced areas tends to be incredibly inaccurate, with Dieng generally playing with his head down once he gets the ball in the final third. This may just be symptomatic of his lack of experience, Dieng has still only recorded 1,065 senior first team minutes, or might be more to do with his explosive playing style. Dieng plays such a high octane game that it is unsurprisingly harder for him to slow down and perceive the space around him than other players given the speed that everything is happening at when the Senegalese is on the ball.

There are reasons to be positive though; Dieng’s bulldozer-like runs make it a lot harder for defenders to stop him and with 2.05 carries into the penalty area per 90, Dieng ranks in the top 2% of all forwards in Ligue 1 this season. And Dieng’s poor decision-making in front of goal, added to his tendency to take an ill-advised shot rather than play the simple pass, is reminiscent of the Michail Antonio of seasons gone by. Now though, thanks to countless training sessions with Moyes and his staff, Antonio has all but erased this wastefulness from his game and blossomed into not only our most creative player, but one of the most creative attackers in the Premier League, averaging 0.56 goal-creating actions per 90. With this in mind, it isn’t unreasonable to imagine that Moyes could work his magic yet again and turn Dieng into a more well-rounded number nine.

Given how frustrating Dieng’s tunnel vision in the final third can be, it is ironic that his speed of movement is also by far his strongest asset. It’s rare to see a 21-year-old with such instinctive movement in the box, not least one with the pace and strength to get into the right zones with such speed that opposition centre-backs cannot react in time. You can see this most clearly with his goal against Stade Rennais earlier this season, where he darts across Loic Bade so quickly that there just isn’t time for the centre-back to engage before the ball is in the back of the net.






Another area of Dieng’s game that is undoubtedly strong is his off-the-ball work. Whilst he’s not the most frequent or successful presser, his tackling is exceptional for a forward and his 3.07 tackles and interceptions combined per 90 place him in the top 1% of strikers in Ligue 1 for sheer volume of defensive output. He’s noticeably good at recognising when the opposition defensive midfielder doesn’t have an immediate passing option and rushing in with a perfectly timed tackle to spring a counter-attack. There was a good example of this, again from the Rennais game, when Dieng raced back to challenge Lesley Ugochukwu and sprung a promising counter for his team.








Dieng certainly isn’t one to shirk a challenge and Moyes would likely be keen on the aggression with which Dieng tackles. Though he may need to tone this down a touch if he were to join the Premier League because he’d be picking up bookings left, right and centre for some of his tackles. He’s somehow managed to get through the whole Ligue 1 season so far without picking up a yellow but his red card in the Reims game for his “tackle” on Thomas Foket exemplified the Scott-Brown-spirit that infects some of his challenges.

Curiously, three of Dieng’s four goals this season have come when he’s been deployed on the left flank. And although this would usually be cause for concern, those goals have come in games where either Payet or Amine Harit has been used by Sampaoli as the central striker. So, with the “striker” more intent on dropping deep and play-making, Dieng can maraud in off the left flank and use his pace to devastating effect.

Marseille have just recruited Cedric Bakambu on a free from Beijing Guoan of the Chinese Super League which has effectively relegated Dieng to being Les Olympiens’ fourth choice striker behind Milik, Payet and Bakambu. With Marseille set for a transfer ban from next summer, Dieng seems to be one of the players they’d be keen to sell in the final days of the January window. Perhaps now would be the best moment to pounce on a player with such undoubted potential.


Jack’s Rating: B-
Dieng’s physical profile would make him a good match for the Premier League and Moyes would be keen on his positional flexibility and off-the-ball work. His finishing remains a concern and his lack of creativity makes it hard to see how he would combine well with players like Said Benrahma and Jarrod Bowen. If we were to sign Dieng, it would be more of a speculative move based on hopes that he could develop into a more well-rounded striker in the future. And given the strength of his performances already with such limited experience, maybe that would be a wise move.

Callum’s Rating: B+
I’ve seen enough in Dieng to think that Moyes could turn him into a useful member of this squad. Yes, his xG underperformance and lack of creativity could be perceived as red flags, but I’d prefer to see them as opportunities to get a potentially excellent striker for a cut price. His workrate is a huge selling point, and if Moyes could teach Dieng to make better decisions in the final third as he did with Antonio, then we could have a real, prolific, well-rounded talent on our hands.

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