Mousa Dembélé Scout Report At Lyon 2022/2023: Potential Bargain Scoring Machine’s Attacking Profile – Player Analysis

Following a very positive 2021/22 campaign in which he scored 21 goals (trailing only Monaco’s Wissam Ben-Yedder and PSG’s Kylian Mbappé) and provided four assists in 30 Ligue 1 appearances for Lyon, Moussa Dembélé (183cm/6’0, 74kg/163lbs) has fallen back into the periphery for Les Gones in 2022/23.

The centre-forward has played just 35% of his team’s league minutes this term.

For quite a while, it seemed as though Dembélé was eyeing up life away from Lyon.

Last season, his career at the Groupama Stadium sprang back into life, but after a summer when he was heavily linked with a departure, with the likes of Manchester United, Villarreal and Juventus all batted about in the rumour mill as potential destinations for the attacker either last summer or for summer 2023 when he’s set to become a free agent — to name a few — it now seems as though his time in Lyon is coming to an end, be that this month or, as just mentioned, in the summer when he becomes a free agent.

Currently, EPL sides Everton and Aston Villa appear to be the teams most heavily linked with the Frenchman.

Still, there’ll undoubtedly be no shortage of suitors for the prolific frontman who has generated the highest xG per 90 (0.71) of any centre-forward with at least 800 minutes in Ligue 1 over the last calendar year (in which he’s registered a total of 2,047 minutes).

On top of that, Dembélé is the third-highest goalscorer in Ligue 1 for the last calendar year, with 18 to his name, living up to LÉquipe journalist Bertrand Latours scoring machine moniker.

With all of that said, it’s clear to us that with less than six months remaining on his current contract, the 26-year-old is a potentially excellent option for a club either competing in Europe or hoping to compete in Europe from one of the strongest divisions that the continent has to offer.

This tactical analysis and football scouting report will look at how the 26-year-old attacker can best fit into his potential new team’s tactics by analysing some key elements of his role within Lyon’s tactics over the last 12 months, with a particular focus on the Lyon man’s goalscoring.

Our analysis will look at his typical shot positioning and shot selection, the kinds of runs we can expect Dembélé to make to consistently place himself so well in high-value goalscoring spots, and his physicality, among other areas, to dissect the forward’s goalscoring game and show why he deserves to be so highly coveted.

Mousa Dembélé Positioning and movement

We’ll kick off our scout report by analysing the 26-year-old’s positioning and movement — always two super important areas to analyse in a striker’s game.

As mentioned, Dembélé has generated the highest xG per 90 of any centre-forward in Ligue 1 over the last calendar year.

He’s also taken the fourth-most shots per 90 (3.25) among Ligue 1 centre-forwards in that time while maintaining a decent 51.35% shot accuracy rate and an impressive 24.32% conversion rate.

So, as Figure 1 indicates, Dembélé generates a high volume of shots while typically taking those shots from good locations.

The Lyon man has generated 0.2 xG per shot over the last two league seasons — the timeframe used for the xG map above.

This is a good avera