Why Newcastle wanted Elanga and how he will need to adapt

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Anthony Elanga is one of the most explosive players in the Premier League and there is already excitement about how he could become a fan favourite at Newcastle United. That speed is the most obvious feature of his game – and the statistics bear that out.

Micky van der Ven registered the top speed in the Premier League last season but you do not have to dig much deeper to reveal that Elanga was the standout sprinter in the competition. Seven of the 20 fastest sprints in the Premier League were his.

For context, nobody else in the top 20, Van de Ven included, hit such a speed more than once. Elanga, whose robustness is illustrated by the fact that he featured in all 38 of Nottingham Forest’s Premier League matches, brought that pace time and again.

Eddie Howe will aim to utilise that undoubted threat on the counter-attack, but the 23-year-old former Manchester United winger has shown under Nuno Espirito Santo that there is much more to his game now than just those extraordinary physical attributes.

Elanga has taken a leap forward with Forest. With 20 assists for the club over the past two seasons, only Mohamed Salah and Ollie Watkins can better that. This season his total of 11, his best yet in a single season, also ranked third in the Premier League.

He is trending in the right direction, his assists per 90 minutes increasing year-on-year throughout his career. In part, that reflects his set-piece delivery. In the 2024/25 season, he provided more assists than any Premier League player from dead-ball situations.

A perfect example of these two key qualities came during the win over West Ham in May. Elanga scrambled to retrieve an angled pass from Morgan Gibbs-White, won a foul and duly whipped in the free-kick from which Nikola Milenkovic scored the winning goal.

Forest fans have become accustomed to seeing Elanga use his great speed – described as “absolutely electrifying” by Jamie Carragher – on either flank and that flexibility makes him particularly appealing to Howe because he can cover different positions.

Speaking to Nuno about this in April, the Forest head coach saw Elanga as a player capable of playing “left, middle or right” in his system. It was not unusual to see him deployed alongside Chris Wood, often running in behind as the striker dropped deep.

His second goal against Ipswich in March illustrated this clearly. Wood drew the centre-back out of position and Elanga raced beyond to score with his right foot – having earlier netted with his left in more conventional fashion, cutting inside from the right wing.

“It is not one piece by themselves, but how two or three pieces interact together,” Nuno told Sky Sports. “When Anthony plays in the middle, he has to have another reference to break the lines. You only can break the lines if there are opposite movements.”

This is a crucial point to remember when it comes to assessing the merits of any new signing. While Elanga’s assets are hard to miss, it is how he fits into the Forest forward line that has helped the team surpass expectations in qualifying for Europe last season.

How well will Elanga adapt to Newcastle’s style? He thrived under Nuno and his traits suggest that he should be a good fit for Howe and his high-intensity pressing. But it is worth noting that the two teams could hardly be more different when out of possession.

No team in the Premier League last season allowed their opponents to progress the ball up the field as little as Newcastle did, their pressing game fundamental to their success. Forest’s game plan was different. They sat deeper, creating space to attack.

This brought out the best in Elanga because of his ability to charge into that space. He ranked second only to Kamaldeen Sulemana last season in terms of average carry distance by attacking players, getting Forest up the pitch with the ball at his feet.

Newcastle will want him to start higher. But Elanga does have the attributes to press. The sophistication of Forest’s out-of-possession game under Nuno was a little underestimated, particularly the demands it placed on the wingers defensively.

It was Elanga’s job to provide protection out of possession. Ryan Yates, the long-serving Forest midfielder, said that the big change in Elanga’s game had come off the ball. Putting that claim to Nuno in the spring, he agreed. “It is much better now,” he said.

Of Elanga’s role, in particular, he added: “It requires knowledge of the game, the spaces to occupy, the lines that you want to cut, how to avoid being [counter-attacked on], how to create the right moment for the other team-mates to press. It is hard work.”

That hard work will be non-negotiable under Howe even if the tasks change. And there is no better standard-setter than Jacob Murphy, the man in possession on Newcastle’s right and one of the two players, alongside Salah, to register more assists last season.

But Elanga’s age profile, his consistent availability, his flexibility, his work ethic and his willingness to improve are all factors in his favour when it comes to fulfilling the potential that first became clear when he broke into the team at Manchester United.

Back in the Champions League for the first time since scored United’s only goal against Atletico Madrid in 2022, this is another player flourishing away from Old Trafford. But Newcastle are entitled to believe there is still a lot more to come from Anthony Elanga.

Sky Sports to show 215 live Premier League games from next season

From next season, Sky Sports’ Premier League coverage will increase from 128 matches to at least 215 games exclusively live.

And 80 per cent of all televised Premier League games next season are on Sky Sports.

This news was originally published on this post .

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