After excelling with Almeria in LaLiga,The 21 year old star is in high demand. Could Burnley be on the verge of a major coup?
Even though the 2022–23 domestic season only ended last weekend with the Champions League final, Burnley is already hard at work getting ready for the following one.
The Clarets are making the most of the fact that their own season ended five weeks ago by getting their players back in preseason training. Vincent Kompany.
Burnley could need some more additions to a good team that has improved under Kompany after securing automatic promotion to the Premier League in style.
This summer, who are Burnley trying to sign?
Burnley hasn’t added any new players yet this summer, but a variety of players, including Jack Clarke, Che Adams, and Bart Verbruggen, have been mentioned in connection with the club.
Burnley is also rumored to be interested in Almeria attacker El Bilal Toure, who excelled in LaLiga after also doing so with Reims in Ligue 1.
Burnley and Bournemouth are reportedly leading other Premier League opponents in the race to sign the Mali international, with a price of £20 million reportedly being enough to convince Almeria to sell.
El Bilal Toure, a striker for Almeria, would be an improvement for Burnley.
Last season, Toure scored seven goals in 21 La Liga games for Almeria, averaging one goal every three games. This included the game-winning goal against Barcelona, which gave his team their first-ever victory in that match.
The 21-year-old moved to the Spanish team last year for €8 million (£6.84 million), leaving Reims, where Graeme Bailey, a football reporter, dubbed him a “major talent” for his play.
FBref rates Ollie Watkins of Aston Villa, a player more well-known to Premier League spectators, as the closest match among players in Europe’s top five divisions to provide a clearer picture of what Toure’s game is all about.
The Malian ranks in the top 24% of all players across those elite divisions for non-penalty goals per 90 minutes (0.46) in the past 12 months, though that figure will only increase on the basis of his end to the 2022-23 season.
Indeed, with three goals in his final six appearances, including that strike against Barcelona, Toure effectively helped keep Almeria in the Spanish top flight for another year.
That will also be his task at Burnley, much in the same way as Chris Wood stepped up during the Clarets’ previous stay in the Premier League. Wood, the Clarets’ record scorer in the division (46 goals), netted double figures in all four of his full campaigns for the club at that level.
Comparing Wood’s final full season with Burnley in 2020-21 and Toure’s 2022-23 season makes for interesting reading. Wood averaged 0.39 goals per 90 minutes and 0.10 assists, as per FBref, compared to 0.46 and 0.13 respectively for Toure.
Those goals came from a pretty much identical expected goals (xG) return of 0.42 for Toure and 0.43 for Wood – who is now at Nottingham Forest – suggesting the former is more clinical when chances fall his way.
There is next to nothing between the pair in terms of passes completed in those two seasons (13.2 for Toure, 13.9 for Wood) and tackles won (0.20 v 0.23). Perhaps more tellingly, Toure also won more aerial duels last season (47.5%) than Wood did in 2020-21 (44.2%).
Burnley’s playing style may have changed since their last spell in the Premier League, but sometimes you just need a player like Wood up top in your time of need. In Toure, the Clarets can sign exactly that man.
READ MORE: Update on the Bart Verbruggen move involving Brighton, Burnley, and Manchester United
The 20-year-old is in high demand after a stellar season in Belgium, which culminated in him winning the 2022-23 Anderlecht player of the season award.
Romano reported last week that Albion were ‘advancing to the final stages’ of a move for Verbruggen, who is also coveted by Manchester United and newly-promoted Burnley.
“Brighton hope to get Bart Verbruggen deal sealed this week as talks are at the final stages. #BHAFC
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