Albert Sambi Lokonga: The Potential First Step in Pimienta’s Sevilla Rebuild
Introduction
At first glance, Sambi Lokonga seems like an excellent bargain for Sevilla. The 24 year old Belgian provides some high level qualities, and is relatively affordable at the rumored €15m asking price. Do the underlying analytics match the surface level optimism of this potential move?
Player Profile
As always, the best place to begin is with Lokonga's seasonal radar chart, with the percentiles computed against all midfielders in the top 7 leagues.
As you can see, Lokonga is a pretty well balanced midfielder. He does not have any marks in the bottom third, and five of the seven core metrics are above the 50th percentile. His biggest strength is definitely his forward passing, with his forward pass accuracy in the 93rd percentile.
This brings me to the biggest alignment of Lokonga to Garcia Pimienta’s tactical approach, and the entire purpose of this article… the ability to control possession through consistent forward passing.
Building Sevilla’s Midfield, One Pass at a Time
As it stands currently, the warriors of the Nervión Plaza will be headed into battle without the following midfielders: Boubakary Soumaré, Óliver Torres, Lucien Agoumé, Fernando, and Joan Jordán.
Thomas Delaney will be returning from his loan to Anderlecht, but a 32 year old that was on loan? Not the reinforcements Pimienta will need, especially considering the different style of play he will bring to Sevilla this season.
Among many stylistic differences, the one that stands out the most to me is Las Palmas' possession. They managed a staggering 59.2% possession in La Liga this season, good for second in the league, ahead of everyone except Barcelona. The major driver behind such a high possession share is the play of Las Palmas’ midfield, specifically Kirian Rodríguez.
Finding quality passers in the midfield should be Pimienta’s number one priority, and with Albert Sambi Lokonga, I believe he has found one of hopefully a few answers.
In this image, I have plotted all midfielders in Europe’s Top 5 leagues by their forward pass volume and accuracy. I have highlighted several key names: Kirian Rodríguez, Djibril Sow, Sambi Lokonga, and all of his Luton Town teammates from this season. By doing this, you can see what the model midfielder achieved in Pimienta’s system, what he is inheriting, and how Lokonga stacks up to these two, given the context of his previous team environment.
The Belgian has the highest forward pass percentage of anyone I highlighted, as well as the highest volume of forward passes on Luton last season. While KRod has a much higher volume of passes, Lokonga’s marks, compared to his teammates, illustrates his ability to play effectively in the high volume role Pimienta will be looking to fill for this coming season.
The other component of his passing profile I do not want to go unnoticed: his ability to pass accurately at range.
The same players highlighted, but this time plotted by average pass length and overall pass accuracy.
Not only is Lokonga the most accurate passer of the highlighted players, but he does it on a selection of passes that are longer than most. I am certainly not suggesting he is a better distributor than Kirian Rodríguez, but taking into account the underlying metrics and the team context in which those stats were generated, Lokonga might not be far behind.
Pimienta's possession heavy style coupled with Lokonga’s overperformance of his situation and his immaculate passing marks, bode extremely well for the synergy of these two parties should the transfer come to fruition.
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