Best Alternatives to Chuba Akpom

Playing Style Analysis

Akpom arrives in the Championship as a physical attacker whose best work happens in the margins—the contested header, the held-up ball, the duel that buys his team a second chance. His aerial and ground duel win rates both sit in the top 20% of Championship forwards, which tells you something important: this is a man who competes. The counterintuitive read here is his passing volume—25 passes per 90 with above-average accuracy suggests a forward far more involved in build-up than his goal return implies. The three closest DNA matches to Chuba Akpom:

• Enes Ünal(83% match) — Ünal is the kind of striker Premier League defenders quietly dread—a physical menace in the air who backs it up with real end product. His aerial win rate sits in the top 5% of forwards in this division, and crucially, those duels are translating: 5.68 aerials won per 90 is not a volume stat, it's dominance.
• Ally Samatta(82% match) — A Target Man. Statistically, he stands out as a capable chance creator (1.1 key passes/90).
• Jeff Ekhator(82% match) — A Target Man. Statistically, he stands out as a regular goalscorer (0.29 goals/90).

Similarity uses per-90 performance across playing-style dimensions. How Player DNA matching works →