The Kébé Conundrum

Another transfer window, another “will-he-won’t-he” transfer/contract drama for Reading fans is on the horizon this January with the news that Jimmy Kébé has been offered a new deal to replace the one that expires this Summer.

A man that has enthralled, amused and infuriated (sometimes within the space of five minutes) during his time at the club presents a conundrum to Brian McDermott should he reject the new contract offer; break the bank to keep him or cut your losses in the Summer and move on?

On his day, he is by far and away the best winger to watch in the Championship. He has the ability to tear apart any defence with a combination of pace, trickery and quality of final ball. Anyone who saw his performance against Leicester at home last season will attest to this; he was simply unplayable that day.

However, therein hides the issue. When the last time “your day” was the better part of a year ago, the word inconsistent fits you like a glove. Wingers are naturally inconsistent, whatever level they play at, but the frustrating thing with Kébé has always been that he looks like he could do so much more because he has so much talent. Arguably his best performance since then was against West Ham this season but that can be pretty much put down to a stellar half hour against a tiring ten men and the amusing gloss that his sock-gate antics put over the entire 90 minutes of play.

Couple this perceived lower standard of play with a natural body language that doesn’t scream the effort and commitment English football fans love and theories that the man isn’t trying hard enough or just seeing out is contract start to flourish.

But, despite the consensus being that Kébé has underachieved thus far this season, the fact remains that he has scored once and notched up six assists in the league and so is actively involved in just under a quarter of our total league goals, a ratio only bettered by his captain Jobi McAnuff. For reference, he netted nine times and set up seven goals all last season and ten and five respectively the year before that. While he isn’t scoring as many, he’s making up for it with assists.

Clearly, Kébé is an important facet of this team and, indeed, has been a key element of the three teams McDermott has constructed in his managerial stint; contributing goals and assists aplenty in each of those three very tactically and stylistically different teams. A handy average of active involvement in Reading’s goal scoring in his career here as well as the ability to occasionally tear a defence to shreds should mean McDermott and Nicky Hammond should be doing all they can to keep Kébé at the club.

If we take a wider angle though, Kébé’s number of assists so far doesn’t even put him in the top twelve assist-makers for the season in the Championship thus far.

 Furthermore, six out of that top twelve did not play in this division last season which suggests that there is talent in the lower divisions capable of stepping up to the Championship and excelling. With McDermott’s track record of picking up signings (his number of transfer failures can easily be counted on one hand), finding a replacement for Kébé may be easier than first thought.

The overarching issue here would be that it would never be a like for like swap as there are very few players around right now that can generate the excitement Kébé does when in full flow. A replacement might offer the same contribution as Kébé in raw stats terms but the positives that cannot be quantified (putting fear into opponents and other psychological aspects) is a lot harder to replace. This talent, the very same talent that causes him to be loved and hated in equal measure by Reading fans, is the secret ingredient that makes the contract tug-of-war so interesting.