Player Profile – Ebou Adams – Derby County midfielder
Ebou Adams isn’t in the Derby County team to score goals, as anyone who witnessed his infamous miss against Cardiff City can attest.
The Gambian midfielder went viral for all the wrong reasons earlier this season when he bravely beat Bluebirds keeper Jak Alnwick to a high ball on the halfway line and sprinted towards the gaping goal.
However, Adams managed to scuff a horrible effort two feet wide of the post as he attempted to finish into an open net.
Much laughter ensued, but Derby’s then-manager Paul Warne made a salient point in his post-match interview.
Sacrifice
“Everybody will talk about the miss,” he said.
“But I think he’s the only player we have who would have been brave enough to chase after the ball and go for the header.
“Because that’s what Ebou is – he’s a sacrificer.”
Adams can score, and does.
This season has already yielded five goals, the most recent a scrambled winner in last weekend’s vital 2-1 win over Blackburn Rovers that ended Derby’s 12-game winless run in the Championship.
But the 29-year-old’s real value has always lain in his engine, his enthusiasm, and his relentless ability to destroy and disrupt.
This is what Warne meant by sacrifice.
Those qualities were first spotted by Norwich City, who in 2016 launched a shock raid on National League side Dartford to sign Adams on the same day they bought James Maddison from Coventry City.
Yet while Maddison went on to earn England caps and a £20m move to Leicester City, Adams failed to make a first-team appearance and, after loan spells at Braintree, Shrewsbury Town and Leyton Orient, he was forced to start all over again at Ebbsfleet United.
Box-to-box
“He’s box-to-box, powerful, good on the ball,” explained the Kent side’s manager Daryl McMahon.
“He reminds me of a young Paul Ince and I think he’s got huge, huge potential as well.”
So it proved.
Adams excelled at Stonebridge Road and within a year was back in the EFL with newly-promoted Forest Green Rovers.
A fixture under Mark Cooper and Rob Edwards at the New Lawn, his combative performances as Forest Green won the League Two title in 2021-22 earned a place in the divisional team of the season, a berth at the Africa Cup of Nations and a return to the Championship with Cardiff.
Unfortunately, serious muscle and knee injuries restricted Adams to just 13 games in two years in South Wales and he spent the final five months of last season on loan at Derby, making a permanent switch following promotion from League One.
In total, he has made over 50 appearances for the Rams and – to the surprise of many on the terraces at Pride Park – is now captain under new manager John Eustace.
Doubts
When Eustace took charge last month, doubts were widely expressed about whether Adams – who has even described himself as a “Paul Warne style player” – could prosper in a more technical, possession-driven system.
His underlying numbers justified those concerns.
Compared to other central midfielders in the Championship, his stats for passing and chance creation are amongst the worst in the division, with a rank in the bottom 15 per cent or lower for passes completed and attempted, shot-creating actions and assists.
He is also in the bottom quartile for miscontrols.
Yet as Warne said – and Eustace clearly concurs – it is more important to consider what Adams brings to the table than what he doesn’t.
Industrious
Focus on the defensive stats and Adams is possibly the most industrious midfielder in the division.
He fills gaps, tracks runners, covers defenders and never stops running.
No player in the entire Championship has won more tackles or a greater percentage of their aerial duels. At one stage this season, he’d made more tackles than any player in Europe.
Per 90 minutes, Adams is also in the top three per cent of midfielders for blocks and interceptions and the top 12 per cent for ball recoveries.
Due consideration must be given to the fact that Derby (under Warne, at least) spend a lot of time without the ball and thus provide Adams with ample opportunity to inflate his defensive stats.
Yet the fact remains that Adams is a highly effective destroyer whose upbeat personality and bond with supporters mitigate his obvious technical limitations.
