What next for Garang Kuol?

After two failed loans and an injury in preseason, the young Aussie is showing signs of promise for Newcastle United's U21s.

While writing last week’s newsletter about how Newcastle United’s young players out on loan had been performing, Garang Kuol was never too far from my mind.

The young Aussie International Winger has had a pretty rough time since transferring to Tyneside. Having joined in 2023, he was immediately sent on loan to Hearts to acclimatise to his new surroundings alongside some international compatriots. While he found game time hard to come by, especially after the manager who signed him received his marching papers, it seemed like a sensible way to settle him into the region.

The following season, he was sent on loan to FC Volendam, and after a few starts was promptly sidelined when they also asked the manager who bought him to the club and ended up playing just 8.1 games worth of 90s. Not ideal.

Then, as preseason for 24/25 got underway, the young winger scuppered any chance of a redemption loan by picking up a grade-three tear to his right quad that kept him from getting good minutes for the U21 team until January 2025.

This series of unfortunate events has tarnished the wider expectations of Newcastle United fans about whether he’ll ever be more than an Aussie-region marketing chip to the first team squad.

Finally, a run of full games…

However, since returning to full fitness in a PL2 League 2-2 draw at home to Everton, things have started to turn around for Kuol. He’s started nine games in a row, playing 827 minutes, scoring four and assisting three goals and has physically matured enough to be ready for senior men’s football.

Incredible speed & dribbling

What is instantly noticeable is his speed, the kid is a burner and eats up yards against anyone that doesn’t have top-end meep, meep. It’s not just that he’s fast, it’s how direct he is. Kuol not only attempts just under 7 dribbles per match but also has the ability to move at pace with the ball through contact and, as the clips below show, has the personality to take responsibility to make the final pass or shot.

Decision-making needs work

While having the gumption to take on players and the responsibility to shoot or try to break down a defence isn’t something you want to train out of a player, you do want them to have a good understanding of where and when they take risks, and in this respect, Kuol plays immaturely.

Here’s an example of what I mean: Kuol takes responsibility when the play is a simple pass to a teammate in the box to his right.

Here’s another example of how his wanting to take responsibility sometimes works against him. Newcastle are on a break, and he just holds the ball for too long, forcing the attacker to his left to slow his run to avoid being offside and giving Arsenal the chance to recover. While he isn’t generally a bad passer, his poor decision-making stunts his ability as a volume creator in the final third for now.

While this is what you’d expect from a player at his stage of development, he’ll need a successful loan or decent minutes from the bench to improve this element of his game. And you know what, he’s a talented lad and sometimes that confidence pays real dividends.

A dangerous finisher

That is somewhat typical of Kuol’s shooting. Give this kid any shot at goal in and around the area he’s likely to take it. Below is his shot map in the run of games we’re analysing, 🟣’s are goals, 🔵’s are on target, and ❌’s are blocked shots. Lotta pot shots here and too few tap-ins here.

A couple of examples here of almost goals. Kuol is a pretty true striker of the ball when given space, can do it nicely on the run too and strikes the ball well with his left foot too.

Both of these misses are unlucky, and as you can imagine, when he does score, the goals are often spectacular.

Perfectly timed aggressive runs

One thing I am super-impressed by is Kuol’s ability to see space behind the defence and aggressively attack it with a perfectly timed run. When you watch the example below carefully, note how far he’s pulled off the full back who has. to build momentum to close down what he thinks will be a simple pass into feet, and how quickly Kuol turns that into a run in behind, once the midfielder takes a good touch. Unless you’re blessed with Kyle Walker's pace, this is incredibly difficult to defend.

We see a variation on the same theme in this clip vs. Leicester, where he pulls wide and creates the passing lane with a blindside run after seeing one defender deeper than the rest. Nice game of pick your poison for full backs, get tighter, and he might use his crazy acceleration against your momentum, stand off him, and he could blow past you anyway.

Happy in a high-pressure system

What any player needs to have a chance of getting in Eddie Howe’s first team squad is the desire to press and harry defenders when they don’t have the ball, and in that respect, Kuol looks like a natural fit.

Here we see the youngster rush the opposition to play the ball all the way back from our own third to Arsenal’s Goalkeeper. He even shows enough awareness to cover the passing lane to the full back and give two midfielders the chance to win the eventual pass from the goalkeeper.

His willingness to do the dirty work comes up again and again in the video of his play. This example in particular shows that Kuol doesn’t just have a desire to work to get the ball back, but an ability to read the game and apply his speed to winning the ball back. Eddie will be purring at this goal.

Conclusions

So what's next for Kuol? Well, he needs to get out on loan and get some serious minutes somewhere. A loan in the Championship would be ideal for both the player and the club, but a part of me thinks if he keeps improving at the rate he is, we might see him get some minutes during the next set of preseason fixtures. If he impresses Eddie and co. enough, then he’s got an outside shot at making up the numbers in the 25/26 first team squad.