Wolves have had a surprising season after Julen Lopetegui left the club after only a few matches because of his resentment with the board. Nonetheless, Gary O’Neil came along and took the club higher up the table, remaining in the top half of the table for some time, though they ended up finishing 14th with 46 points. With the possible departure of Pedro Neto, Wolves have decided to sign Jorgen Strand Larsen. Can he take them to the next level and fight for European competitions?

In this article, we will be taking a deep dive into Strand Larsen and how he can take Wolves to the next level. We will be comparing him to Wolves’ current forwards as well as comparing him using percentiles in different aspects of the game with the other La Liga forwards.

Name: Jorgen Strand Larsen

Position: Center Forward

Age: 24

Country: Norway

Height: 193cm

Preferred Foot: Right

Last Club: Celta

Context: Strand Larsen began his career at Sarpsborg (Norway) and early on he went on loan to AC Milan’s under-19 team for one season. Later on, in 2021 he was signed by Groningen for €1.1 million, after two seasons in the Netherlands, Celta decided to sign him for €11 million and has been there for the past two seasons.

Here we can see that Strand Larsen has the second most xG among Wolves’ players reaching almost 0.5 xG per 90. This highlights his ability to get into goal-scoring situations, in addition, his goals/90 is very high showcasing his ability to turn that xG into reality. This is an aspect that is highly valued by managers as the scoring instinct of strikers is not easy to come by.

In this image, we can see that Strand Larsen does not have an agile profile, mostly due to his height as he has the least dribbles attempted, nonetheless, his success rate is not very low. This shows that he is a striker who likes to stay in the box or drop but you won’t be seeing him on the wing changing positions with the winger. 

From this image, we can deduce that Strand Larsen is not the type of player to drop to help progress the ball as he has the least passes attempted with the lowest precision, highlighting also his incapacity to pass the ball effectively. This tells us that Strand Larsen is a player that has similar characteristics to Erling Haaland where he likes to stay up front and wait for the ball to come to him rather than the other way around.

In this image, we can see that Strand Larsen is a menace in the air when it comes to aerial duels as he has the most aerial duels attempted with the highest success rate by far. 

This chart compares Jorgen Strand Larsen with the rest of the La Liga center forwards using percentiles in different aspects of the game. The percentiles work in the way that the higher the number the better he is in that aspect of the game, for example, if the value is 87, that means he is better than 87% of the players he is compared to.

In this image, we can see that Strand Larsen’s ability to win aerial duels is quite good as he has a better success rate than 70% of the La Liga strikers. In addition, his non-penalty xG is impressive as he is in a high percentile which indicates his ability to get into goal-scoring positions.

Moreover, we can see that passing and getting involved in the play is not one of his strengths as he is in a low percentile of passes attempted and those completed. Overall, he has a similar profile to that of Samu Omorodion, Joselu, and Anastasios Douvikas, the other center forward at Celta de Vigo.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Strand Larsen is a player who adds another profile to the squad as all of their attackers last season were more agile and excelled with the ball in their feet. Nonetheless, now with Jorgen Strand Larsen, they can add a lot more variables to their game as they can now play more direct football whereas before this wasn’t possible.

In addition, it gives them the opportunity to put crosses into the box as he is a target man with attributes similar to those of Erling Haaland, giving them another way of scoring. However, he does not have experience in the Premier League, though seeing his stature and his ability there are no signs to reason why he should lack the characteristics needed to flourish in the Premier League.

By: Juan Fernandez Valencia / @ScoutLaLiga

Featured Image: @GabFoligno / Jack Thomas – WWFC