Liam Rosenior’s RC Strasbourg have enjoyed a promising 2024/2025 Ligue 1 campaign – with players like Valentin Barco and Emanuele Emegha emerging as top talents within the division. Tricky, technical, and tenacious winger Dilane Bakwa has perhaps flown under the radar, yet could be a prize gem with an exceedingly bright future.

For the most part, a typical modern “winger” can be boiled down into one of two categories – the “Inside Forward” or the “Touchline Winger”. This is a massive and almost egregious oversimplification of the different types of profile out there, but if you really wanted to categorise, this is how you’d do it. Your Mo Salah’s cut inside and threaten the goal, while your Bradley Barcola’s do their best work dragging defenders out to the touchline.

Dilane Bakwa – an £8M~ acquisition by Clearlake’s Strasbourg from Bordeaux last Summer – lands more on the latter side of that coin. This season, the 22-year-old Frenchman has been deployed largely as a winger or a wide midfielder in a 3-5-2 set up. He holds width on the right hand side, and looks to try and pin the opposition fullback with aggressive and direct carrying of the ball. He delivers a respectable output (six goals and eight assists in Ligue 1), and enjoys a strong frame and good athleticism without being a physical outlier either in terms of strength or pace.

So what makes Dilane Bakwa interesting? Are we not looking at “just another” decent young winger with some modicum of potential? (A dime a dozen in the modern era).

Well…maybe. But also probably not. Bakwa is truly intriguing because when you watch him it’s very obvious he has the capacity to do it all. Terrorise the touchline AND menace the middle. Bakwa isn’t reliant on blistering pace, and while his footwork is very impressive at times, we’re not looking at a purely skill-driven dribbler either. This is a creative and technical player who has the capacity to take his man on directly or switch things up and link play with his teammates through inventive passing and movement.

As a direct wide threat it’s clear to see that Bakwa is already operating at a high level.

He does the majority of his work closer to the touchline and has no issue with facing up 1-on-1 with the opposition fullback. As mentioned earlier, Bakwa is not a particularly fast player. He’s not slow, but pace and acceleration alone isn’t one of the major tools in his arsenal. No more than say, Bukayo Saka. Not fast, not slow.

Instead, Bakwa is a proponent of the ‘stop-start’ dribble and shifting that slightly bulkier frame with surprising agility to catch defenders off guard. Whether this leads to a successful take-on and an opening of space or a foul won and a free-kick for his side is almost immaterial, because he’ll just keep doing it. Your opponent can only commit so many fouls, and take so many yellow cards, after all. In 2024/2025, Bakwa has drawn 2.56 fouls per 90 – putting him in the 95th percentile among wingers and forwards in the top 5 European leagues. Combined with his high amount of progressive carries in general (2.52 carries into the final third per 90) this leads to an efficient progressor of the ball at a relatively high volume.

It’s a fabulous asset that, if translated to other leagues, could prove to be a major boon for sides that look to use their wide players to limit opposition threat via “danger levels” (think Mo Salah ready to recieve on the counter thus limiting how aggressive the opposition fullback can be in posession) or to hit on the break themselves. Though it’s important to note that Bakwa offers significantly more than direct transitional threat via dribbling.

Source – Squawka

Here, we’ve taken a variety of statistics to compare Dilane Bakwa with several Premier League wide players of varying profiles. Now, it’s important to remember with data that each comes with it’s own complex context (say that three times fast). Different leagues, different systems, different objectives, different opponents. However, a broad comparison like this is quite revealing in regards to Dilane Bakwa and what “profile” he is.

We can see from the above that Dilane Bakwa is, by quite some distance, the most prolific passer of the ball among all of these forwards. The eye test will tell you that Bakwa is a very capable passer, crosser, and striker of the ball, but the stats do put into perspective just how much of an all-rounder the 22-year-old is.

Strasbourg boss Liam Rosenior is certainly comfortable enough to utilise Bakwa’s delivery skills as one of several set piece takers at the club, with Bakwa offering up 0.76 Shot-Creating Actions from dead-ball situations per 90 minutes with the club this season – often favoured to swing in corners and wide free kicks with his left foot from the right-hand-side. A stat that puts him in the 83rd percentile among forwards, and a consistent form of chance creation in comparison to his open play numbers, where Bakwa still needs to find consistent returns. (2.41 Shot-Creating Actions from open play per 90 – 40th percentile among forwards).

Beyond final third actions and chance creation, Bakwa is still an important avenue in Strasbourg’s progression up the field, often linking up with his teammates to break lines with slick 1-2 touch passing, through balls, and big switches of play. He can also be consistently relied upon to deliver dangerous crosses when cutting back in on his left foot from the byline.

At the very minimum, there’s great potential for Bakwa to be a dangerous dual threat in the not-too-distant future.

Source – Fbref

As with any young forward, there are weaknesses and they are not particularly difficult to spot. He loses possession…a lot. Not always a bad thing – after all you’d always prefer your forwards to attempt to create threat. Out of possession, Bakwa does the job he’s asked to do, but it can sometimes feel reluctant. He presses but it doesn’t always feel like there’s real intent to actually win the ball, more like clocking in and doing the job he’s been asked to do. He challenges the opposition ball carrier, but rarely with the feeling that he’s truly putting his body on the line to win that ball back. It’s not lazy, it’s just not with full intensity.

Dilane Bakwa joined up with Strasbourg in the Summer of 2024, with Chelsea ownership, the Clearlake Group, bringing him into the club for around £8M. A move to West London seems unlikely at this stage, given the fact that Chelsea employ about 15 wingers and even brought in Geovany Quenda from Sporting for the right wing position. Recent reports have linked him with others, such as Tottenham and Newcastle, which could represent very interesting opportunities for Bakwa, although the reported £30M~ asking price may prove to be a stumbling block. It’s a lot to ask for a player with significant potential and a fairly unique profile, but ultimately fairly limited attacking returns within what many view as a weaker domestic league.

Strasbourg have secured European football with their 7th place finish in Ligue 1 – stepping into the Europa Conference League qualifiers next season. The chance to compete in Europe along with the possibility that the club may lose several other key players may lead to Bakwa staying with the club for atleast another season, and possibly with an increased responsibility to deliver in place of those that may end up leaving.

Dilane Bakwa has represented France at U21 level six times, and was recently called up to Les Espoirs once again for the upcoming youth European Championships.