It is, of course, far too early to be panicking about Evan Ferguson’s spell at Roma. Thursday night’s Europa League encounter with Czech side Viktoria Plzen will be just his ninth game for the Italian giants and though he hasn’t scored yet, he’s hardly the first striker in Italian football for whom the engine took a little time to warm up. He’s definitely not the first at Roma.
Francesco Totti and Edin Dzeko are the club’s two greatest modern strikers, sitting first and third on their all-time scoring list. Totti scored just once in his first 16 games, Dzeko had one goal to show for his first nine. And though no two situations are the same – Totti was a 17-year-old kid breaking through, Dzeko was an established 29-year-old – their numbers weren’t much different then to what Ferguson faces now. Fair to say it turned out okay for them both.
So no, no need to panic. But the Ireland centre forward could do with a goal for his new club all the same. Or a few of them. He’s made eight appearances – five starts and three off the bench. He’s had three shots on target, only one of which had the opposition goalkeeper needing to move his feet to make a save. That’s not going to get it done.
In Rome this week, the local press has started to talk about moving on. Roma are actually doing reasonably well in Serie A – they’ve won five of their first seven games and lie fourth in the table. But they are also the lowest scorers of the top dozen teams. When they faced off against Inter last weekend, manager Gian Piero Gasperini went without a central striker, leaving Ferguson and Ukrainian striker Artem Dovbyk in reserve.
READ MORE
‘Roma without an attack, Dovbyk and Ferguson are a disaster: Gasperini is looking for alternatives.’ So went the headline in Tuesday’s Corriere dello Sport, the city’s sports daily. Dovbyk, who missed two penalties in a recent game as well as butchering an open goal, took most of the flak. But under a heading that read: ‘Ferguson a flop so far’, the Bettystown man was dismissed as well.
“And if Dovbyk doesn’t score,” wrote Roma correspondent Jacopo Aliprandi, “the other centre forward won’t make an impact. Evan Ferguson, who turned 21 yesterday, still has a long road ahead of him. In the final assault against Inter, he didn’t get a shot on target. He’s been without a goal in the league, with only one assist. Too little for someone who should be the starting right-hand man, or at least a resource in the game.”
As it happens, Ferguson was exceptional on his Serie A debut, which is only eight weeks ago. He started at centre forward against Bologna and could have had a couple of goals inside the opening quarter-hour. For his first chance, he had a lovely touch on the edge of the box, set himself and whipped a shot that stung the palms of the Bologna goalkeeper. For his second, he came steaming in to bang a header from 15 yards just past the post.
But although the reviews were gushing after that game, it’s clear that he hasn’t kicked on in the weeks since. He had a lovely assist in his second game, laying on the winner against Pisa for Mathias Soulé. But he was only a sub against Torino, didn’t play at all against Fiorentina and badly mistimed a header against Lazio to waste what was a very decent chance.
When you watch Ferguson in Roma games, he sometimes appears tentative and a bit short on confidence. One half-chance in the Rome derby fizzled out to nothing because he took an extra touch in the box instead of shooting immediately, the way he often did when he was in his Brighton pomp.
In his competition with Dovbyk for the centre forward role, you wouldn’t say he’s losing out but you couldn’t say he was winning either. The Ukrainian has the same build and though Ferguson would be considered better with his feet, in many Roma minds the pair are more or less interchangeable.
One problem for Ferguson is that Roma paid Girona €36 million for Dovbyk just over a year ago. They are literally more invested in him than in someone who is in Rome on a loan deal with an option to buy for a hefty €40 million fee at the end of the season. Roma tried to offload Dovbyk in the summer but couldn’t get a buyer – now that he’s in situ for another season, they may feel that they have to find a way to make it work.
The same imperative isn’t necessarily there for Ferguson and already there is talk of them going to the market again in January. Two names have been floated around this week, Joshua Zirkzee of Manchester United and Nottingham Forest’s Arnaud Kalimuendo. Though neither of them have been in the mix at the clubs so far this season, there’s every likelihood that it’s just agent-driven scuttlebutt. The kind of thing that disappears very quickly if either Roma striker starts finding the net.
For Ferguson, that has to happen soon. Though his goal tally for Ireland has held up very well – he’s matching Robbie Keane stride for stride, in what can kindly be termed a significantly worse Ireland team than Keane made his bones in – his club scoring record has become a glaring red flag.
His last club goal was almost exactly a year ago, for Brighton against Wolves on October 26th, 2024. His last one before that was in November 2023. Remember that hat-trick against Newcastle in September 2023 that had everyone purring and cooing on Match of the Day? He has scored three goals in club football since.
Injuries have been a terrible blot on those two years and he is still only 21. But that’s three goals in 63 appearances since the Newcastle hat-trick. With the best will in the world, there’s no great future in numbers like those.
