Evan Ferguson is one of the most talented teenage footballers on the planet – but what makes the Brighton striker so dangerous?
To watch him with the eye is to see a player with no obvious weaknesses in his game. He is fast. He is strong. He is clever.
Ferguson is good in the air, as evidenced by his bullet header from 15 yards out which salvaged a draw for the Albion away at Leicester City in January 2023.
He can play the role of the target man, holding the ball up and bringing others into play. Watch him off the ball and the runs he makes are sensational for a 19-year-old.
Ferguson pulls defenders into areas they do not want to go, creating space for teammates and himself. His goal at Everton last season saw him check his position when drifting into the box, making an extra yard before beating Jordan Pickford.
It was reminiscent of the intelligent forward play which earned Glenn Murray so many goals. Praise does not come much higher for a Brighton striker than comparison to Murray.
The potential Ferguson has to be the complete centre forward has led to other comparisons with greats of the game almost as good as Murray.
In the Republic of Ireland, Ferguson’s native media have described him as the Irish Erling Haaland. Former Tottenham Hotspur and Aston Villa boss Tim Sherwood compared Ferguson to “Alan Shearer in his pomp”.
A one-time youth coach said Ferguson “always had a touch of Marco van Basten” about him. “Going to be the next Duncan Edwards” was the opinion of Mark Beard, Ferguson’s manager with Brighton Under 18s.
All of those opinions are based on watching Ferguson with the naked eye. In the stat-obsessed 21st century, that is not nearly enough to earn a player monikers such as wonderkid or generational talent.
Evan Ferguson though backs it up with numbers. His 11 Premier League goals in 2023 saw him tie Wayne Rooney for the most scored by a teenager in a calendar year.
Matching the achievements of Rooney was a big accolade. But prior to that, Ferguson also equalled a number of other long-standing Premier League records.
When Brighton won 4-1 at Goodison, he became the youngest player since Michael Owen more than 25 years earlier to score and assist in the same top flight game. It also made him the youngest since Federico Macheda to score in consecutive Premier League matches.
Evan Ferguson become only the fourth player aged 18 to score a Premier League hat-trick when he single-handedly beat Newcastle United at the Amex in September.
Nobody else had done it in the 21st century, the previous three from Chris Bart-Williams, Robbie Fowler, and Michael Owen all coming before the year 2000.
That treble against the Saudi Sportswashers also meant Ferguson moved onto 10 Premier League goals prior to his 19th birthday. A feat only previously achieved by Owen, Rooney, and Francis Jeffers.
In the era of xG, Ferguson holds up very well in that metric too. Research from Sports equipment retailer Net World Sports looked at the biggest xG over and underperformers in the Premier League so far this season.
Ferguson ranks as the fifth most deadly striker. From the quality of chances created, Ferguson was expected to score 3.12 goals. His actual goals total of six means he is outperforming his xG by 2.88.
Think of finishes like his strike away at Nottingham Forest and it is not hard to understand how Ferguson is scoring more than expected.
Not many players could pick out the bottom corner with such unerring accuracy from the outside the box. The xG numbers back up what you see when Ferguson is on the pitch – his deadly finishing allows him to score goals other strikers cannot.
Needless to say, Ferguson is by far the youngest player in the top 25 xG overperformers. Son Heung-min leads the way, his 12 goals coming from an xG of 7.47 for a score of 4.53.
Albion summer transfer target Mohammed Kudus is next, scoring 4.18 more goals than expected since his £38 million move to West Ham United.
Hwang Hee-Chan of Wolves has 10 goals from an xG of 6.79 and Bernardo Silva is just ahead of Evan Ferguson, outperforming his xG by 2.96 for Manchester City.
In terms of xG underperformers, there are some interesting names on that list too. Liverpool forward Darwin Nunez is the worst offender, scoring 6.13 fewer goals than he should have done.
Nunez was frequently linked with Brighton during the Graham Potter Era; what an addition he would have been for Potter and his Kings of xG.
Unsurprisingly given some of the finishing we saw during his time with the Albion, Neal Maupay is fourth for underperformance. La Petite Shithouse Francaise should have 5.17 goals for Brentford this season compared to the two he has registered.
Erling Haaland makes the top six, scoring 14 times from an xG of 16.73. Maybe Haaland needs a move to Brighton so that Roberto De Zerbi can unlock more goals from him, as he has with Solly March?
Our friends at Chelsea meanwhile have two players on the underperformers list. Nicolas Jackson should have 11.18 goals rather than seven and Enzo Fernandez 4.73 rather than two.
Fernznadez scored his entire season’s haul when the Blues beat Brighton 3-2 at Stamford Bridge, one of which came from a controversially awarded penalty.
With the the curse of Glow Up Graham still hanging over Chelsea and Mauricio Pochettino unable to shake their xG nightmare, it is little wonder the Blues are now being linked with a British-record summer move for Ferguson.
They are not the only ones, of course. Manchester United. Liverpool. Spurs. Real Madrid. City if Haaland were to leave. The world and his wife seemingly want to sign Ferguson.
But he deserves better than to go to Chelsea. The goals he scores. The records he has set already. The xG overperformance. The comparisons to some of the best forwards to have ever played the game.
Why risk moving to Stamford Bridge and seeing your career stalled or go backwards, as has happened to every young player to move there since Todd Boehly arrived?
Evan Ferguson can become one of the greatest strikers of his generation. He is already amongst the most dangerous in the Premier League.
It will not be long until one of the biggest clubs in the world pays a fee in excess of £100 million for his services.
Let us just hope it is the right one. His talent is far too special to be put to waste.
