How will Rangers' new striker Fashion Sakala fare under Steven Gerrard?

Sakala first came to prominence in Europe in early 2017 with a move from his homeland to Russia, where he joined Spartak Moscow. His time in Moscow was mixed, he didn’t manage to make an appearance for the first team but did show promise with FC Spartak-2 Moscow in the Russian Football National League, the second tier of Russian football.

After a solitary season in Russia where he played primarily as a lone forward in a 4-2-3-1 formation scoring 13 goals and making 3 assists, KV Oostende made their move. Signing the then 21-year-old Sakala in the summer of 2018.

Whilst the Belgian national team have been flying high at the top of the FIFA World Rankings since late 2018, the Belgian league is not quite as well thought of by FIFA’s European counterparts, UEFA.

At the time of writing, the Jupiler Pro League has dropped down to 12th place in the UEFA league coefficients, with the SPFL moving up to 10th. As we know, these rankings are not necessarily a valid barometer of talented players within the league, as they are based only on how teams have performed in European competitions.

The Belgian Jupiler Pro league has long been known as a league which develops young players and moves them on to bigger leagues and clubs for significant profit. The makeup of the Belgian National team at Euro 2020 is a prime example of this, with only Hans Vanaken of Club Brugge still currently playing in the domestic league.

With such a proven record of bringing through and selling young players, it’s only natural that the continents scouts have eyes on every team within the league, hoping to be the one who finds the next Kevin De Bruyne or Romelu Lukaku and whisk them away.

Within this context, Rangers' capture of Sakala is being viewed as a significant coup in scouting circles, with several well-respected figures championing him over the last couple of months. Indeed, the player himself confirmed in an interview that he knocked back several offers from clubs in England and France before deciding to sign up for Steven Gerrard’s fourth season at Rangers and a crack at the Champions League.

It’s not out with the realms of possibility to suggest that Sakala could have moved for £6million plus if under contract, so it’s yet more evidence that good use of the free transfer, or ‘Bosman’ market, is vital for a club like Rangers if they are to achieve the success the club desires with a player trading model in the future.

KV Oostende

KV Oostende are not one of the bigger sides in the Jupiler Pro league, with their fifth place finish last season being their highest finishing league position since the same feat was achieved in season 2016/17. As a matter of fact, in Sakala’s first two seasons at the club, they flirted seriously with relegation finishing 14th in 2018/19 and 15th in 2019/20 in a league of just 16 teams.

In summer 2020, Oostende appointed Alexander Blessin as their next manager. Blessin is a 48-year-old German who had been part of the RB Leipzig coaching set up since 2012. As with all coaches within that Red Bull stable, Blessin favours a high pressing, high intensity style of football which has radically improved KV Oostende’s fortunes turning them from relegation candidates to a Europa League team.

Despite Oostende’s improvement last season, it remains to be seen if they can hang onto their manager and take the next step domestically and in Europe, therefore it does feel like Sakala has picked the ideal time to leave and take this bigger opportunity at Rangers as he comes into his peak years as an attacker.

Sakala’s tactical role

The uptick in Oostende’s performances and results last season under Blessin aligns nicely with Fashion Sakala’s own radical improvement. In his first two seasons at the club, Sakala scored just six and nine goals respectively, but in season 20/21 he really came to the fore, bagging 16 goals to finish as the club’s top scorer.

Under Blessin’s guidance, Oostende switched from a 4-1-4-1 formation to primarily a 3-5-2, and this tactical tweak to provide Sakala with a strike partner has suited him perfectly. Oostende do retain the ability to switch between both formations as any club should do, but it’s clear to see that playing a partner gets the best out of Sakala in the Belgian league.

As mentioned, Oostende are not one of the bigger teams within the league. They have been able to use this to their advantage by adopting a counterattacking high-pressing style in the mould of the German gegenpressing model, focused on allowing opposition teams to dominate the ball then striking quickly to win it back in advanced areas of the pitch.

It’s this approach to winning the ball back quickly and aggressively that has become key to Sakala’s game. As the central striker, he initiates this press by cutting off passing options for the opposition’s defenders who are then forced to play long or into the congested middle of the pitch.

When in possession, Oostende employ similar positional rotation tactics to Rangers, allowing the attacking players to roam and impact the game in any gaps that may appear in the oppositions defensive shape.

Sakala’s movement in attack can be quite similar to Alfredo Morelos in the sense that he likes to drift wide to encourage balls down the channel. Where Morelos will then use his body to receive the ball before twisting and turning away from a defender, Sakala prefers to use his pace to outstrip opponents and create opportunities for himself to bear down on goal.

In Oostende’s 3-1 win against Genk in February, we see Sakala drop into the right half space and looks to collect the ball in a fairly innocuous position. Rather than gaining possession of the ball and looking to drag opponents out of their defensive line before recycling back into midfield, Sakala shows that aggressive streak by gambling that the Genk defender will get close to him. When this happens, this allows Sakala to dummy the pass and by making great use of that searing pace, he can comfortably beat the defender and leave himself with a clear path to goal.

Again, similar to Morelos, when the ball is on the other side of the pitch Sakala likes to hang back behind the defender’s line of sight before cutting across his man and attempting to attack the cross into the box.

In his last game for KV Oostende, a 2-2 draw with Mechelen we see a prime example of this.

Oostende press aggressively and win the ball back in their opponent’s half and begin to break forward at pace. The ball finds its way to Theo Ndicka Matam with Sakala providing support centrally. As play progresses, Sakala elects to use his pace to run on the outside of the covering Mechelen centre half into the middle of the box which provides Oostende attacking midfielder Ndicka Matam with the opportunity to flash the ball across goal, leaving Sakala to finish emphatically.

That off-ball awareness to stretch play and hare straight for goal shows a clinical side to Sakala that he can hopefully develop into a consistent habit during his time with Rangers.

His ability to pick the ball up in the middle of the pitch and dribble at defences like Ryan Kent is a huge part of his game, however as one of the lesser teams within the Belgian league, Oostende are focused primarily on counterattacking. Playing for Rangers domestically would lead to some potential minor concerns relating to Sakala’s ability to adapt to playing for a possession heavy team trying to break down deep-lying defensive SPFL teams.

Many of Sakala’s goals and opportunities last season were as a result of winning the ball back in transition or during Oostende’s counterattacks, so it is difficult to judge how he would handle that change in style and deal with more defensive opponents. With Sakala’s ability to press from the front, force defensive errors and create his own opportunities there is no reason why he can’t adapt quite successfully to the Scottish league and become an important attacker for Rangers.

As mentioned, Sakala enjoyed a fantastic season in front of goal last season. His improvement in front of goal coincided with his shot selection. Throughout his time in Belgium he averaged between 2.5 and 3 shots per 90 minutes. However in his second season, 55% of his shots at goal were taken from outside the box.

Under Alexander Blessin and following the switch to a 3-5-2 formation, this figured dropped dramatically with just 20% of Sakala’s shots originating from outside the box. Oostende were getting Sakala the ball in much more advanced positions, as a result of both pressing higher up the pitch and providing him with more attacking support.

The improvement is remarkable and shows the benefit of a tactical structure that aims to get the best out of your key players. It goes without saying, that attempting shots from central areas within the box are always more likely to result in higher quality chances than from anywhere else on the pitch. So, it’s positive to see that all but one of Sakala’s 16 goals were scored within the width of the six-yard box, demonstrating the excellent positions that he takes up in the box.

He can still be erratic and at times makes poor choices in decisive areas, but the improvement year on year indicates that we can expect this to continue with a better quality of player and better coaching.

One obvious area of improvement for Sakala would be his link up play, which is not yet at the level of an Alfredo Morelos or Kemar Roofe. He is capable, and has linked well with 23-year-old Senegalese forward Makhtar Gueye since his arrival at Oostende last summer, but it’s worth noting that link up play and creativity are not Sakala’s main skillset. Rangers do have several players more comfortable in possession, so I don’t envisage this necessarily being an issue.

Where does he fit in tactically at Rangers?

Speaking to the Rangers website when Sakala signed, Rangers Sporting Director Ross Wilson said: "We wanted to add more pace and power to the group across January and the summer and I am pleased that we have done that, firstly with Scott Wright and now with Fashion Sakala."

When you factor in the recent signing of John Lundstram from Sheffield United on a free transfer, it’s clear that adding these attributes has been a key focus for Rangers in the last two windows. It could be said that the only things missing from this Rangers team is more pace and athleticism in the central areas, therefore adding this could be extremely beneficial, particularly if the club have aspirations of Champions League qualification or an even deeper Europa League campaign.

On top of the strengths mentioned by Ross Wilson, Sakala is a very aggressive player with an explosive dribbling ability and a keen eye for goal. With those characteristics, it would be easy to compare him to Ryan Kent at this stage, however I believe Sakala has more attacking instincts than Kent and will play more as a central striker for Rangers than a winger cum attacking forward.

It’s worth noting that Rangers are heavily stocked in the attacking areas for the coming season with Sakala, Kent, Alfredo Morelos, Kemar Roofe, Cedric Itten, Jermain Defoe, Scott Wright, Ianis Hagi and Joe Aribo all capable of playing across those three forward positions.

With Aribo playing more often in a central midfield role last year, the possibility that Hagi could also do similar this season, and Roofe’s European ban following his red card against Slavia Prague last season, there is certainly a clear opportunity for Sakala to make the right sided attacker role his own in the early stages of the season. An attacking front three of Kent, Morelos and Sakala is a mouth-watering prospect on paper and is certainly an approach that could work very well in European competition.

Domestically, as mentioned above, Sakala will not be familiar with the ultra-defensive tactics of the Scottish League. So, Rangers and Sakala may have to go through a slight adaptation phase to get the best out of him.

One possible way that this could materialise and get the best out of Sakala would be a more permanent switch to the 4-3-1-2 formation that Rangers trialled towards the end of last season.

In the 2-0 and 4-0 victories over Celtic in April and May, Rangers set up with two central strikers and a sole number 10 in Ryan Kent. This tactical switch allows Kent to dominate play centrally by driving at the heart of opposition defences. Aided and abetted with Alfredo Morelos’ battering ram style –Rangers created chance after chance in crucial areas of the pitch.

As we know, Morelos does a lot of his best work outside the box, primarily by dropping into the right half spaces to link up with James Tavernier and Scott Arfield.

When you factor in Sakala’s skillset and his clear preference to play with a partner and also to play on the last shoulder of the defence, there could be an opportunity for Rangers to again utilise that two man striker partnership in certain games. This provides yet another additional dimension to Rangers attack and should give the team even more firepower going into the new season.