Haji Wright, eh? Let me break him down for you in a really long winded, epically accurate way so you can really, really get a feel for the kind of player he is.
So, for starters, he's very quick. He likes to play off the shoulder and favours the ball into space over a direct pass into feet. That's not to say he can't take a player on, but he mainly thrives on using acceleration and pace to get onto the ball in front of him where he can use his finishing ability. He stands at a handsome 6ft 3, or for those of you living in 2022, 190cm tall. Does that mean aerial ability is one of his strengths? Why yes, he's one of those players that can score with his head or his feet.
He really burst onto the scene when playing for the USA (that's the United States of America for any Europeans out there) under 17s, where he scored a modest 27 goals in 34 appearances over two years. Unsurprisingly, this led to a move to Schalke, following the trend of young Americans heading to the Bundesliga to ply their trade. He scored 14 in 22 for the Schalke reserve side (who at the time played in the Oberliga Westfalen, the equivalent of our Isthmian League Division One or National League depending on your outlook on life). His rapid pace and eye for goal soon saw him promoted to the first team, but he failed to make an impression at such a young age and was loaned out to second tier club SV Sandhausen . After a failed trial at Bundesliga 2 (Sussex County Premier) club Union Berlin, he signed for VVV-Venlo in Holland (cross ref/ LIV Supplies for standards) for the princely sum of €0, where he scored 0 times in 22 games. This didn't endear him to the fans, who were expecting the next Claudio Reyna and instead got Jozy Altidore's little brother. He abruptly left after one season under the cover of darkness.
He eventually found a home at Haderslev based and world record for hardest to pronounce name attempt SønderjyskE. He fared much better and scored 11 goals, before announcing he couldn't be arsed telling his mates who he played and moved on loan to Turkey (who, in a delightful twist of irony, have just changed their name themselves after a 3 hour meeting with Assem Allam). In Antalya, he scored 14 in 32 and finally became the sort of player VVV Venlo fans had been dreaming of.
So he's been around the ringer a little, questionable as to whether he engineered some of those moves to unusual sounding clubs but overall, he's steadily started to prove himself over the last 18 months. We saw with Daryl Dike at Barnsley and subsequently at WBA that players like him can settle well into the English game, but I fear our name is nowhere near complex enough and if we have any hope at all of this coming off (which we do because I've watched every single game he's played since he was 19), some sort of name change will be in order.
Hope this helps, a couple of the other lads will be along in a minute to talk about XG, pass percentage rates and overall minutes in the box.
