Momodou Sonko – Scout Report
Intro
19-year-old Momodou Sonko has slowly but surely been beginning to carve a name for himself in the football-sphere in recent seasons. After an impressive 11G+A return from just shy of 15 90s for BK Häcken in their 2023 league campaign, the Swede didn’t take long to fly the nest of his birthplace, Gothenburg.
KAA Gent is where he found himself this January. The winger had clearly made quite an impression on the Belgian side as the €7.25m fee it took to acquire his services broke their own transfer record.
So, without any more tiptoeing around it, here’s a detailed look at what the teenager did to make such a lasting impression on Gent and what the future might have in store for him.
Before I get into the meat of this, it’s important to preface that Sonko hasn’t accumulated too many minutes still, so the figures used (taken from fbref) are based on just 756 minutes (8.4 90s), and are ranked against players from the 14 next best leagues outside of the ‘Big 5’. So, take them with a pinch of a salt.
Style of Play
Dribbling
Possibly Momodou’s stand-out asset is his dribbling. Whilst not without its flaws, he has a solid base technique, is able to shift the ball on a dime, attack both directions, and creates space for himself to exploit impressively.
Despite acting as less of a touchline winger at Gent as he was in his Häcken days, he still averages 2.26 successful dribbles per 90 (87th percentile) and 1.67 carries into the penalty area (82nd percentile).
His best stuff arguably comes when he has to dig his way out of holes, mostly because he has to rely on gut instinct. When this takes over, it allows him to showcase his ability to improvise with sharp turns, croquetas, and all the like to evade one challenge after another.
It’s in these scenarios, quite often deeper in buildup, where he acts intelligently under this pressure to create and manipulate space. Without awareness even really factoring into it, Sonko just quite simply understands that moving one way, especially in situations that are likely to easily attract pressure, will inevitably open up another way, and he’s got a great knack for exploiting it, either through speedy dribbles on the turn or disguised passes through the gaps.
As he’s progressed, he’s leaned more and more into this way of thinking when it comes to 1v1s high up the pitch. Recently, he’s more often chosen to take the less-predictable outside route, since opponents expect the cut-in onto his favoured right foot.
In any case, what he does well from a starting point – and much more so from the left flank – is drive at his opponent on the diagonal in order to keep both directions open.
This angular drive is key for all top dribblers, but how they apply it with their boot varies. Some of – but definitely not all – the best dribblers in the world (Saka, Yamal, etc) opt to incorporate the inside of their boot a lot as well because it’s easier to keep the ball under their spell with it, especially since outside of the boot adjustments tend to expose the ball more to the opponent. These sorts of players do still use the outside of their boots plenty when it comes to accelerating, cutting inside and looking to open up the outside, though.
To use Saka as an example, this clip gives you a great idea of how much control he has over the 1v1 situation. He progresses diagonally and laterally using both sides of his boot but plenty with the inside, which allows him to keep the ball at arm’s length from the defender. Additionally, with these 2-step shifts you can see well from this close-up angle, his forward momentum goes more into his body movement than the touch itself, which means he’s consistently taking very small, easy to measure touches. Because of this, he can control his tempo much better than others, so can pick his moment to use the outside of his boot to engage his opponent, rather than always putting himself within reach of the defender and without full control of his angles as he would if he led with the outside of his boot every time.
Lateral, and rhythmic, shifting with the ball like this can be great, particularly in and around the box when the defence tightens, for both keeping the defender(s) on their toes whilst keeping all angles open. As seen below, his widespread shifts mean he always has the necessary momentum and angles to accelerate sharply backwards or forwards in response to a defender’s attempts to dispossess him.
Saka rarely gets pigeonholed because of this and has so much thinking time to be able to pick the right pass. And, if all options are covered, he can turn back easily and reset.
It probably feels like I’m going off on an unnecessary tangent here but I think it’s relevant to Sonko because this is the sort of approach to play that suits his outlook. He likes to serve the system with the ball. The issue is that he’s relatively incapable of it at the moment because his technical approach (using just the outside of his boot) takes away his time, space and the extent of his angles, which is a nightmare considering his tunnel vision, also.
For all of his easy speed with the ball, there are limitations, like his operation speed, that are more exposed by this technique as it can lead you down a rabbit hole that you weren’t prepared for. This has been apparent before when Sonko’s driven at his man and he’s struggled to juggle the tasks of evading challenges, being aware of additional defenders not initially in his line of vision, and assessing how best to attack the situation at large.
If he fixates on protecting the ball as he carries it, he misses out on what’s in front of him, and so his final action can be one that’s missed out on the optimal choice at the optimal time. Vice versa, if he’s trying to assess what’s beyond his nearest man, he can lose sight of his ball control altogether, and even just the fear of that can be enough to see him scramble to save a ball that was already well-protected.
But, more to the point of the technical issue, he then leads himself into tighter and tighter avenues where the windows of opportunity, particularly when it comes to finding the optimal pass or resetting by escaping back the other way, shrink to the point of non-existence.
This is also due to the direction of his momentum and a lack of control of it. If we use the goal as the northern-most point on a compass, Sonko’s momentum is consistently very north-pointing and also quite fast, which can be funnelled into pockets and can narrow his angles of escape quickly given the shift in momentum required for him to execute a sharp-angled turn away. Saka, on the other hand, is more eastern-pointing with a lot of his more patient touches, which maintains his ~180º range and asks too much of the defenders to narrow those angles down without exposing space elsewhere for him to exploit, thus making shifts back in the opposite direction much more routine.
So, unless Momodou has planned ahead, which is often only the case when it comes to the aforementioned space-creation to open up a dribbling path, he can find himself running into too many cul-de-sacs.
His imbalance between on-ball control and awareness plays a big part generally in not detecting the right options at the right times, as well, whether he’s under pressure and in space or not. Even his adjustments to the ball can be an issue – for instance, when shifting inside, he doesn’t always push the ball out far enough to keep moving at a consistent speed or keep it close enough to avoid losing all control, so it either gets caught under him and he struggles to recover or he loses it completely. And, when he becomes over-concerned with guarding the ball, he can take needless touches that skew his angles of progression.
This is why, in spite of some positive dribbling figures cited earlier, he’s also tackled 2.5 times per 90 during take-ons (14th percentile), at a rate of 52.5% (35th percentile).
More to the point of the Saka comparison, though, Sonko’s habits seem to align better with the Arsenal winger’s higher-margin style than other outside of the boot carriers who do a much more successful job of being consistently forthright and aggressive in 1v1s.
The Swede isn’t a major presence as a dribbly winger in games. He’s not the kind that constantly demands the ball to feet and wants to be the hub of everything, ‘heroball’-ing his way to several [pot] shots per game. He’s quite the opposite – he’s pretty timid, in fact, which explains why he can make those negatively tentative adjustments when juggling options and pressure simultaneously. Sonko only averages 45.71 touches (42nd percentile) and 33.1 passes (39th percentile) per 90.
It’s also apparent in some of his blasting runs through the middle that this is the case as he’s often way too quick to release the ball. Once he’s broken past the pressure, the ball is like a hot potato to him. He doesn’t want the weight of responsibility that leading an attack into space comes with.
As a consequence, he misses chances to drive into spaces he’s created and misses opportunities to create better quality chances with passes because the options ahead haven’t yet had time to get into the right positions to receive in dangerous enough areas.
Controlling and passing
On top of this, there is the simple fact that his short passing isn’t the tidiest, either. He gives away more than his fair share of simple passes each game. And, it’s not in one way either, he’s guilty of sending them too long, too short, too far off-target. Especially in the final third when laying it off after a short dribble, his passes can lack that slightly bigger picture awareness to consider what sort of pass would best fit the attacker in a pressure-sensitive area. Part of this is down to those struggles with managing the ball when taking his eye off it, and equally when releasing it by not taking his eye off the ball.
This picture is painted pretty clearly in his lowly 82.6% short pass completion (28th percentile). It’s actually his medium and long range completion rates (84.2% & 70.4% respectively) that rank much higher, but that’s very likely because those sorts of passes are very high-margin balls, like ones sprayed across the back line when looking to deliver the ball into space after evading a bit of pressure in off the flank. The cop-out ball, almost, which can be productive but can be an easy kind of pass to play that even allows for inaccuracies, hence his somewhat anomalous (compared to the other passing categories, at least) 0.6 switches per 90 (87th percentile), his only type of pass that ranks above the 50th percentile.
Where else Sonko is a little too loose in his management of the ball is in his controlling of it. A persistent problem, which can plague his dribbling at times too, is the reliance on his right foot. In the last year, he’s averaged 2.86 miscontrols per 90 (20th percentile).
He very rarely sets himself with his weaker left foot, which then results in him cutting back across the ball to meet it, not affording himself a backboard, and limiting his options since negative first touches like this can completely shut down small chances to attack positively.
To use Saka as a comparison point again, you can see below not just how he uses his weaker foot to open up his body, but how he also uses his stronger foot to somewhat suspend himself during contact, making it easier to cushion the ball. This makes it easy for his next touch to be taken with his stronger foot, goal-facing and in either direction. With an array of options like this every time, defenders are wary of pressing him aggressively, because this sort of direct exploitation can be the result if it goes wrong.
Overuse of the right foot from Sonko in these situations has seen him take touches that pigeonhole his next move, kill his momentum, see the ball run loose, and generally cut off windows of opportunity.
In this instance, if he transferred his weight and the ball onto his left, he would be able to access the outside against the grain of the defender. Instead, his right foot touch back across the ball cuts off that angle and doesn’t provide much of a backboard since it’s with a smaller area of his boot, which makes it harder to access the one (anticipated) angle he wants to access.
Whilst Saka is often out on the touchlines doing this, Sonko, who has featured plenty more on the inside of late since joining Gent, has suffered due to a lack of this since he’s in more time and space-pressured areas between the lines. Here, a weaker foot touch on the half-turn versus a right-footed touch that angles his body backwards can be the difference between making a dent or being quite easily shepherded away from danger.
This is not to say all of his first touches are bad, or that he never cushions a pass with his left. He has a good enough knack for using his right to control the ball into space on the instep, albeit typically with the safety of angling backwards into open space.
These moments of receiving through the lines generally are also the best examples of active scanning, as he always wants to gauge the level of pressure he is under. So he’s consistent in checking over his shoulder.
A positive knock-on effect of this has been his ability to exploit passing and spatial opportunities with his first touch that go against the grain of a presser, mostly when these options are within his line of vision to the ball.
It’s just a shame that his scanning and awareness doesn’t extend far beyond this right now.
What would help him do this even more effectively is to use his body better to absorb pressure. When receiving, Momodou tends to be upstanding and quite narrow in his body shape, which makes absorbing the pace of the ball, the weight of opposition pressure, and shifting his body to easily adapt to slightly off-kilter passes much more difficult. Even in stints from the right side, his loose take-downs of longer passes have illustrated a similar lack in organised leverage behind the ball.
Saka as shown already is, once again, a great reference point here. Him and Momodou are far from the biggest guys but the difference in pressure absorption is stark. Bukayo will never shirk the chance to lower his body, spread his weight, lean on his opponent and use their pressure to turn them with the ball (specifically in a much more directly physical way than Momodou does). He’s one of the best in the biz at it.
Momodou is, however, the antithesis of this – he never wants to engage his opponent physically, he never spreads his weight like he could, and he refuses try and even hurdle challenges on the run. When he has to receive a more difficult, bouncing ball with his back to goal, he frequently rushes back to meet it in as much space as possible, but in doing so misjudges trajectory and can’t actually trap the ball effectively. It follows the earlier point about his timidness. It often feels like the scanning for opponents he does is almost in order to avoid any confrontation.
Even when under no pressure, this is also true of his approach to the ball and circles back to the technical points regarding the pair’s differing dribbling techniques. Saka’s inside of the boot ball shifting promotes a wider body spread and those two-step shifting rhythms that allow him to both balance his body and his weight behind the ball. This makes it easy for him to constantly get his body between ball and man, even just to buy himself that bit of time to get/regain full control. Additionally, Saka is willing to throw his body around and matches an opponent’s force with his speed to contest purely physical ground duels as well as he does.
Sonko, on the other hand, with his aforementioned narrower silhouette, light and thinly spread footwork, and overuse of his right foot make it supremely difficult for him to adapt his control to different situations and shift his body direction aggressively enough to shield the ball as well as Saka does.
For him, it’s just about the footrace to getting the next touch on the ball without any consideration for how he could use his upper-body to do so, which is sometimes necessary because he otherwise becomes a pushover and allows his momentum to be used against him.
It’s by no means the easiest thing for a guy his stature, or lack thereof, and Saka’s probably a bit of an outlier in this regard, but he could still do more. It’s another one of the big limiters for him in tighter areas of the pitch, and especially in terms of handling himself in his ascent up the European leagues.
Movement
As for the teenager’s movement, he’s proven to be a mixed bag so far but the kind coaches take a shine to.
Away from the final third, he positions himself and moves fairly well within the constraints and demands of a given system. At Häcken, he was more of a touchline player, tasked with bearing the height and width of the pitch, sometimes from the right but eventually more so from the left. Last season at Gent under Hein Vanhaezebrouck, he featured much more centrally as part of two-man strike force; this season under Wouter Vrancken, while back at left-wing, he still spends plenty of time drifting in from the flanks.
What’s been clear throughout both spells is that he’s willing to move selflessly and make runs into dead-ends in order to abide by the needs of the team.
At Häcken, due to his usual wide position, he moved much more out-to-in, if he did move at all. More often than not, Sonko would hold flat ahead of the fullback when they had the ball, which was sometimes counterproductive but could equally be valuable to back-and-forth ball circulation, especially in cases of stabilising play when it first reached the final third.
Whilst there were, and still are, creases that needed improving, he’s showed improvements in Belgium. There’ve been some really nicely-timed movements to get on the ball on the inside, as well as to be a consistent offerer to the ball-holder. The consistency to his intensity has increased, too, which has been important to executing crucial double movements to create separations from his marker.
The one issue with his double movements, however, which sheds some light on his issues closer to the box, is that he doesn’t commit to the space in behind nearly as often as he could or should. From his Häcken days to now, he always wants to free himself up short to the ball more than he does to gain a yard on the last man. This can not only miss great chances to attack the space in behind but also congest space that needed to be opened for other teammates, which is far from aided by his lack of awareness.
Bear in mind, Momodou is no slouch, either. His straight line speed is well up there but he shirks plenty of opportunities to test the last line, whether it’s because he doesn’t want to handle a physical duel, because he prefers the safety of peeling slightly wider and deeper of the last man to receive to feet, or because he simply lacks that instinct to test the space by his own accord.
As a consequence, he’s sometimes beaten before the race is even run and can’t at least provide a pinning run for an isolated teammate on the ball in these moments.
As for how that impacts his final third movement: he doesn’t have the aforementioned instinct, awareness or simple hunger to get after attacking spaces.
His movement in general is still a work in progress, as is showcased by how lost he can look in crowded situations high up the pitch where he has to think for himself.
This much also goes hand in hand with that lacking instinct for goal because his standard response is to stay static or move out of the way but equally away from goal, rather than attack it head-on to more effectively create space and/or get into better positions to be a threat of some kind.
When there’s a high turnover, Sonko’s culpable of only watching the ball, not the space. Sometimes this is an awareness-based issue, other times it’s not, as illustrated by his box movement.
While there are potential physical duels to contend with here, it’s also also a scenario where he can attack space from the blind-side of his opponent with greater momentum and even skirt around any opponents. Still, he doesn’t. He’s typically asleep to the chance to attack the face of goal, or even just the cutback space – lingering detached at the far corner of the box or, at best, up against his man but not pushing to get goal-side and positioned in a way that would telegraph any attempts to break away.
Sonko’s still oft involved in big chances, albeit much less so from the end of crosses and much more so from counterattacking moves. Even with his flaws, by virtue of his solid movement and positioning – sometimes staying slightly detached from the rest of the shape to allow him to be an immediate outlet – he still finds himself in plenty of dangerous positions. This goes some way to explaining his 9.88 progressive passes received (86th percentile) and 5.71 touches in the opposition’s penalty area per 90 (92nd percentile).
But his expected goal figures certainly do not wow and it feels as though he should be primed to be getting on the end of much, much more here, I feel. Especially in crossing situations, as they afford him the chance to see the space and the ball and his man all at the same time.
His non-penalty xG per 90 sits at a middling 0.23 (63rd percentile) right now, and he averages just 1.79 shots (27th percentile).
Still, an uptick the potential for an uptick on this front is trainable.
End product
When it comes to chance creation, a lot of what’s been covered so far does also plague his ability to deliver a great final ball. The failure to juggle different thought processes at once when dribbling can lead to him to miss spotting the right options at the right times.
Yet, when assessing his decision-making, the topic feels a little more nuanced because these surrounding limitations can eliminate the chance he even has to showcase it.
When in the final third, his choice to shoot or cross, and at least vaguely where he aims the latter, tends to stand up to scrutiny. What doesn’t, in particular when crossing, is more so the choice of execution, as he will float it when he should curl it or fizz it at head height when he should drill it along the ground.
Unsurprisingly, the Swede averages just 0.95 key passes and 0.08 xA (both 7th percentile figures).
This is also where, hypothetically, possessing the dribbling style of those I alluded would suit him more as it would buy him the time to lift his head (as seen with Saka’s assist clip earlier) with more assurance over ball protection.
The need to fall on his weaker side to deliver final balls is another reason for low figures, as his technical execution isn’t nearly as comfortable as it is on his right. You can see this purely in how he plants his right foot relative to the ball. He too often stamps it down way too short and out of line with where the ball will be at contact, meaning he’s rarely able to get over it and maintain control unless trying to simply pass it with the inside of his boot.
This rears its head for shots he takes with his left, which don’t tend to end too well.
As for right-footed finishing though, this is where Momodou’s final action is able to redeem itself.
Sonko’s already established a favoured finish – the curler into the far right corner. It looks like a shot he’s committed the 10,000 hours to, and it shows with the number of times in the small sample I watched just how often he found the inside of the post when he did get a clear shot off.
This is not just backed up by his only senior-level hat-trick coming from three of this same finish but also his shot accuracy being sky high at 53.3% (99th(!) percentile). And, such is the quality of his strikes, that by far and away his most prolific form of goal creating action is via his own shots, as his 0.12 per 90 puts him in the 96th percentile.
What shouldn’t be overlooked is how cleanly he’s able to pull plenty of these off. He strikes it so true with that top inner part of his boot, getting venomous whip and dip. He consistently plants his boot well relative to the ball to stay over it and carry out a seamless weight transfer that enables him to generate great linear power.
The only issue from here is predictability. This finish is clearly one he defaults to 99 times out of 100. Even when finding different areas of the goal, his approach is always incredibly vertical, like in this example.
So, what can lack is variety to his shot selection to adjust to different circumstances, both in terms of placement and finishing type. He so rarely opts for slower, more guided finishes, particularly more towards the near post and set out from his narrowed-in stance. It can result in him forcing higher-power shots that are tough to execute without as much easy momentum or time and space to play with.
Sometimes a shot or move can be so good that it doesn’t matter how telegraphed it is. However, Sonko’s previously-discussed imperfect ball path adjustments make it so tough for him to always create the acute pieces of separation necessary to get off shots in tight areas. For that reason, the trigger either doesn’t get pulled enough or the shot is easy to smother, hence his lowly shooting figures. It seems symptomatic of why he boasts a non-penalty xG per shot rate of 0.13 (84th percentile) that, as positive as it can be, needn’t be so high for someone capable of striking the ball so true from range.
He has the chops to be a lethal finisher but not yet the literal chops to be a more refined ball-carrier in order to generate more of these wicked efforts.
Defending
Defending is one of Momodou’s strongest attributes. Most forwards from an early age could be forgiven for lacking the intensity and technical prowess to make themselves proficient when handling senior level opposition, but the Swede has already shown huge upside, which was no doubt a big part of his appeal to Gent will continue to be for future suitors.
Positioning and pressing
His positioning is a small aspect that shows great sensibility. He doesn’t jump the gun when it comes to trigger presses and knows the value of holding a narrow position to block halfspace entries.
Though his limited scanning means his awareness may be more so informed by tactical instruction, he nonetheless exhibits excellent discipline to be so wary of the threat he’s tasked with covering and is impeccable in how he times his steps out to the ball-holder.
Not only this but his technical approach once he reaches the deeper opponent is also extremely impressive. Especially the case out wide, the teen does a great job of suffocating the ball-holder by decelerating before reaching them, so as not to overcommit. He’s then able to funnel their action by spreading his stance and effectively zig-zagging in a way that forces them to play down a dead-end.
If he isn’t already curving his press to direct play one way, then the initial, aggressive plant of his foot is a shortcut to both blocking the outside and affording him the platform to then spring in the direction he’s forced his opponent to play towards.
It’s also where he profiles the strongest from a statistical standpoint. He ranks in at least the 78th percentile or better for all of his tackles and tackles won, even when broken down into each third of the pitch. He also averages 0.83 interceptions per 90 (89th percentile) which, combined with his tackling figures, puts him in the 92nd percentile for tackles + interceptions (2.74 p90).
With his speed, it’s been good to see him leading the charge more from higher, narrower positions for Gent of late. He’s a player who loves to harry opponents into mistakes high up the pitch and to chase lost causes. With the technical smarts to back it up, he ‘s able to at least get his team further up the pitch, if not force high turnovers, which is how he’s put himself in the 92nd percentile for shot-creating actions via defensive actions, at a 0.12 per 90 rate.
What’s been really impressive to see from Sonko is his working back following turnovers. Whether it’s from a ball he’s lost or not, he’s always so keen to get back goal side to help defuse a situation, and he’s showed good consistency to it even late on in games.
There are occasions where his positioning can leave the space in front of his fullback a little too exposed and with a little too much ground for him to make up, but it’s also hard to pin how much of this is down to his ball-watching at times and how much is down to tactical instruction. As mentioned before, he is sometimes deployed slightly higher during defensive phases to be a more immediate outlet.
Vertical exposure
Where Sonko can look a little exposed, however, is in defensive situations where he has to press a little more goal-facing and has to deal with overloads that vary from what the tactical training asks him to cover.
The aforementioned lack of awareness is a key player in the latter. He doesn’t routinely check over both shoulders and assess the surrounding area as often as he could, so there will be times where he presses up through the middle but with no regard for an easy wide option that can then circulate the ball to the player in his cover shadow. His positioning in these sorts of situations up and down his own half can leave him exposing passing lanes by trying to cover spaces that are redundant.
And, when he does press out in a more vertical manner, the greater angles that the ball-holder has at their disposal are often used well against him.
Sonko can also create more a rod for his own back in these scenarios by not being as thoughtful with his approach play – he doesn’t decelerate as often and therefore ends up planting without much coverage, which is easily beaten by simple shifts against the grain. It’s probably why he, in contrast to his other cited figures, ranks much lower in terms of dispossessing dribblers with a success rate of just 27.3% (10th percentile) and 0.36 dribblers tackled per 90 (20th percentile).
This can be potentially damaging in his own third when getting out to recover because he’s not able to fully neutralise the situation, and instead gives the ball-holder an easy chance to side-step him and deliver an easy ball into the box.
Conclusion
Momodou Sonko is in many ways a formulation of what top possession coaches want from their winger. He can be electric but equally a very sensible and hard-working player, both in and out of possession. He’s technically astute and very receptive to instruction. There are unpolished upsides that could be developed and that’s what should keep him climbing the European ladder.
In spite of his downsides, a lot can, and should, develop with experience and coaching. Many of the imperfections feel as though they are a symptom of a current lack of experience at the level in which he’s competing, which is understandable for a player both of his age and with his little time on the pitch. It’s important to consider that the 19-year-old has only made 5 full 90-minute appearances at senior level to date. Whilst you can perhaps raise questions over engine-based issues since his accompanying injury record is squeaky clean, plenty of it can reasonably be put down to age and internal pecking orders.
The positive is that he’s getting more and more first team starts this season, which should hopefully accelerate his progress and pose a clearer picture of him as a player. Getting more minutes under his belt is obviously paramount and a gradual ascent (if there is to be one) seems most ideal for his development in the short-to-mid-term.
Although his best position feels locked down to the left wing, nothing about him as a stylistic fit feels nearly as stringent. Be it as rotation or as a starter, he has what it takes to be a hard-working cog in a defensive, transition-based team, just as he does have the currently-unlocked potential to be a part of a ball-dominant outfit. In the immediate future, he’d probably have an easier time bedding into the former, but there’s definitely a case for him to have a good impact in the latter, especially when reflecting on his breakthrough return for Häcken in 2023.
It gets harder and harder to accurately put a ceiling on any player’s final destination as top teams continue to find more and more ways of catering to the needs of individuals with even inescapable limitations, not dissimilar to Momodou’s, in fact. So, my best bet for Sonko would be for him to become a regular starter at a top half club within the big 5 or a rotation option for one of the bigger boys.
~