Adam Le Fondre: How new signing compares to former Hibs favourites and cinch Premiership strikers

When Adam Le Fondre’s name was first linked with a move to Hibs there were a couple of easy comparisons fans could make.

The striker has spent five years playing in Australia’s top flight. It’s the same level of football enjoyed by former Hibs forwards Jamie Maclaren and Jason Cummings over the past season, as Maclaren struck 24 times for Melbourne City while Cummings tallied 21 goals at Central Coast Mariners.

The fact Le Fondre managed just 13 with Sydney FC could be looked upon as a cause for concern regarding his signing. After all, neither Cummings nor Maclaren would get pulses racing if they were brought back to Easter Road, and both of them are several years younger than the ex-Reading hitman, who turns 37 next season.

But those goal tallies are a little misleading. Cummings and Maclaren played much more than Le Fondre across the campaign. When you boil it down to goals per 90 minutes, especially non-penalty goals, there wasn’t much difference. Maclaren averaged 0.5, while Le Fondre and Cummings were equal with 0.48.

Adam Le Fondre celebrates scoring for Sydney FC in the top flight of Australian football earlier this year. Picture: Getty

There are similarities to be made with regards to how three play the position. Specifically, they’re there to score goals.

Whenever his side have the ball, Le Fondre is not interested in coming deep to be the architect of the attack. He wants to finish it off. Therefore, he’s always looking to make runs in behind. His pace may have been sapped a little by his advancing years, but he moves cunningly around the final third; getting on the blindside of defenders, splitting markers, and bending runs to stay evasive and onside. He’s not interested in charging ahead with the ball himself. When he does come to get it he controls, knocks it back to a team-mate and gets back into position.

Though he may not touch the ball much outside of the penalty area, he does where it matters. Compared to the 25 strikers who played the most in last season’s Scottish top flight, he would rank seventh for touches inside the penalty area.

He also has a creative streak in him. Comparing him once more to last season’s cinch Premiership strikers, Le Fondre would rank second for Expected Assists per game, third for key passes, second for shot assists and sixth for through balls.

To bring it back to A-League comparisons, though, Cummings was equal or better than him in three of those categories with shot assists being the exception (Maclaren was weaker in all four).

The Cummings comparisons are difficult to quantify. It would be easy to write off Le Fondre due Cummings’ final spell in Scottish football, where he was struggling to get a game for Dundee. But it could so easily be the case that the former Easter Road maverick has finally found his potential on the other side of the world, as his World Cup appearance and impending big-money move to Mohun Bagan Super Giant in India would suggest.

There have been some duds, but the majority of A-League stars to have come over in the last couple of years have justified their transfer. With his experience of British football, a reputation as a selfless team-mate and his career pedigree, Le Fondre resembles a one-year gamble Hibs can feel justified in taking.

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