With the opening of the January transfer window fast approaching, Celtic continue to be linked with a host of players from across the globe.
One of the latest names to be linked with a move to Parkhead is Egypt international Mohamed ‘Afsha’ Magdy.
A reported long-term target, the Hoops are competing with several clubs including Turkish giants Besiktas and Galatasaray, for the attacking midfielder’s signature this winter.
The 26-year-old, previously linked with a move to Glasgow last summer, is reported to carry a £4million price tag after impressing in the Egyptian Premier League with Al Ahly.
With defenders Yuki Kobayashi and Alistair Johnston already agreeing on deals to join Ange Postecoglou’s side this winter, Afsha would become the Hoops' latest mid-season addition, should a move to paradise materialise in the coming days and weeks.
What would Afsha bring to the Parkhead party and where would he fit in? Let's take a closer look...
Player profile
Playing only in his native Egypt so far in his career, Afsha previously turned out for Enppi SC and Pyramids FC before joining Al Ahly in 2019.
He has been a huge success at Egypt’s most successful club, scoring 29 goals and providing 32 assists in 147 games with two of his goals coming in back-to-back CAF Champions League final triumphs.
The 26-year-old has continued to produce eye-catching displays which have led to links to several clubs over the past few seasons. Turkish side Sivasspor saw a deal fall apart this summer while TCW exclusively revealed earlier this week that he has up to six offers on the table ahead of the January window.
His form for Al Ahly has also earned Afsha international recognition – he has been capped 20 times by the senior side, scoring five goals and producing five assists.
Although he has played in central midfield, and even out wide on a few occasions, Afsha has played mostly as the central attacking midfielder in Al Ahly’s favoured 4-2-3-1.
As can be seen in the above heat map, he very much occupies the kind of areas of the pitch where you would expect to see a traditional number 10. He takes plenty of touches in the half-spaces, with a slight preference to drift left.
Fairly slight and standing at 5ft 6in, Afsha's physical profile may well lead to question marks over whether he would cope with the demands of the Scottish Premiership.
However, there have been similar concerns about the physical suitability of signings previously, Kyogo Furuhashi for example, that were ultimately unfounded.
The above chart gives further insight into Afsha’s playing style from his minutes played in the Egyptian Premier League over the last year.
The chart, which uses Wyscout per-90-minute data converted into percentile ranks to compare him with other attacking midfielders and wingers (minimum 1,000 minutes played) covers several attacking, possession and defending metrics.
Attacking
Over the last calendar year, Afsha has contributed 0.31 goals per 90 and 0.19 assists per 90, which sees him rank highly for goal contributions among his peers.
His output in the Egyptian Premier League has been very much sustainable too. He has averaged similar expected goals (xG) and expected assists (xA) numbers compared to his actual output – 0.29 xG per 90 and 0.20 xA per 90.
In terms of shooting, Afsha has taken an average of 2.27 shots per 90 over the last year - one of the highest in the dataset - however he has quite a low rank for his shots-on-target percentage with 30.51 per cent of his efforts on goal finding the target.
The below shot map gives further insight into Afsha’s shooting performance in the last calendar year:
He takes most of his shots with his stronger right foot with just a handful of efforts coming from either his left or from a header.
Consistent with his low shots-on-target percentage, we can also see a relatively high volume of shots from low-value areas outside the box.
In the last year, he has attempted a total of 53 shots outside the box, hitting the target just 10 times and failing to find the net once. However, this is not anything that could not be remedied through coaching, even at 26 years old.
Within the box, unsurprisingly, Afsha is much more efficient and most of his shots in there come from central zones; he has scored six goals from an xG of 6.15 in the last year with his other two goals coming from the penalty spot.
His shots certainly pack a punch and he will often look to whip the ball into corners, such as in the below example.
Taking up a nice position in the left half-space, he quickly controls a lofted ball into him from his team-mate.
Shifting the ball onto his stronger right foot, he opens up the target before unleashing a powerful strike into the side netting.
Another example of Afsha’s fierce shooting came in an CAF Champions League match against Kaizer Chiefs.
In possession, he lays the ball to a team-mate just inside the box before stepping onto the return ball to cleanly strike high past the goalkeeper at his near post.
Looking back at his chart, Afsha does not rank too highly for crossing (1.88 per 90). Given his central position, this is not too much of a surprise. However, he does boast the most accurate crossing percentage of all attacking midfielders and wingers in the Egyptian Premier League over the last year.
An example of one of his accurate deliveries is shown above. Picking up the ball in a deep position on the right, Afsha gets the ball out of his feet, bending a cross onto the head of an Al Ahly team-mate just inside the box.
Possession
Looking at the possession section of Afsha’s percentile rank chart, we can see he does not tend to dribble too much, averaging just under two per match (1.96 per 90) while he also ranks in just the 33rd percentile for progressive runs (1.54 per 90).
He is however secure enough when he does travel with the ball and has one of the highest dribble success percentages in the dataset (58.82 per cent).
It is Afsha’s passing numbers that clearly stand out in his possession section though. He has attempted more progressive passes than any other attacking midfielder or winger in the Egyptian Premier League over the last 12 months (10.12 per 90).
He also ranks very highly for dangerous passes (a combination of key passes and through passes). Afsha has produced 0.88 key passes per 90 and attempted two through balls per 90 during the last year.
Despite this high volume of more difficult passes, Afsha’s pass completion – shown in the below graphic from Wyscout– is still very impressive at 86.39 per cent over the last year.
The graphic also underlines just how influential he has been on the ball for Al Ahly. He has the league’s highest xGChain – a metric that assigns the xG value of a shot to every player that made any action in the attack that led to the shot.
Technically excellent, Afsha also has a fantastic range of passing and is more than capable of finding the killer ball, such as in the below example.
Again, in a deeper area of the pitch, he shows excellent vision to spot the run in behind of his team-mate on the opposite side.
He then threads a brilliant ball through the opposition’s midfield and defensive lines to put his team-mate through on goal.
He is just as capable closer to the box too, such as in the above example where he flicks a perfectly weighted first-time ball in behind the opposition defence.
Of course, given the nature of the types of passes he looks to pull off, he does not get them all spot on but, as mentioned, his overall pass competition is still impressive.
That tendency to always look for a defence-splitting ball would certainly be a valuable attribute to bring to the table, especially in the context of the low blocks that Celtic face regularly domestically.
Defending
Afsha does not rank too highly in the defensive section of the percentile rank chart. He is in the bottom quartile for the number for the average number of defensive duels he is involved in (3.35 per 90) while his win rate is just under average for an attacking midfielder/winger in the Egyptian Premier League.
He also has a low rank for the number of possession-adjusted interceptions, averaging 2.19 per 90.
However the above graphic from Wyscout, which shows Afsha’s recoveries in the final third over the last year, sheds further light on his defensive contribution.
Here we can see Afsha actually ranks well compared to all other outfield players in the league for recoveries (2.27 per 90) and dangerous recoveries (0.69 per 90).
It is likely Afsha would potentially take up one of the two number eight roles if he were to join Celtic – most likely the more advanced one where Matt O'Riley is usually deployed.
This role still comes with plenty of off-the-ball demands so it is encouraging to see, despite not being physically imposing or overly aggressive, that Afsha does possess some of the attributes that would be required of him out of possession.
One example of Afsha contributing off the ball for his current club can be seen below.
With an Al Ahly attack breaking down on the right side ahead of him, Afsha is switched on, stepping across to win possession as the opposition attempt to play their way out.
On this occasion, he uses his body well to then win his side a free-kick in a dangerous area.
Conclusion
A maverick midfielder capable of producing moments of magic, Afsha is an interesting prospect.
Played predominately as an out-and-out number 10, the main question would be surrounding his suitability for one of the advanced midfield roles in Postecoglou’s system, particularly in terms of his physicality.
However, given his clear quality on the ball and his ability to find the killer pass, there is no doubt the creative Egyptian would add something extra to Celtic’s midfield.
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