When Kenyan international and KAA Gent defender Joseph Okumu played against West Ham United in midweek in the first leg of the UEFA Europa Conference League quarterfinal, he earned both local and international plaudits for putting up a decent display against a side playing in arguably the best league in the world.The same West Ham that scored twice against Arsenal on Sunday afternoon in an English Premier League tier could only manage to put one past Gent with the Kenyan marshaling the back three alongside 22-year-old Polish defender Kamil Piątkowski and Germany’s Jordan Torunarigha.##NAJAVA_MECA_7182616##As appealing playing as he was on the eyes, so was he on the statistic of the match, according to information by stats provider InStat.The Kenyan attempted the most number of passes in the whole Gent’s team in the game, 69, followed closely by Julien de Sart and Sven Kums on 68 and 63 respectively. No other player in the team attempted more than 50 passes, with the other closest teammate being Alessio Castro-Montes.Of the 69 attempted passes by Okumu, 57 met their intended destination, giving him a passing accuracy of 83%. Only Kums had more successful passes than Okumu with 60, an insane 95% accuracy rate.Okumu’s passing prowess was at its peak in the first half where he only misplaced four passes of the 29 that he attempted.Joseph Okumu making history with KAA Gent as they face West Ham United in the UEFA Europa Conference League quarters. This photo was taken not so long ago when he turned out for Chemelil Sugar FC in the FKFPL. pic.twitter.com/5t7zatSiSg— Bonface Osano (@bonfaceosano) April 13, 2023 Most importantly, he made two threatening accurate passes in the first half, landing them in promising areas on the edge of the box, passes that have become an important aspect for top modern centrebacks.The second half was not the calmest one on his passing graph, with perhaps the pressure by the entire team to get a goal back and get a result at home forcing them to be erratic as they attempted to send more balls forward, and also with West Ham’s quality showing.His passing network was mostly concentrated on the players around him, exchanging 22 passes with Piątkowski, 19 with Torunarigha, 16 with Kums, and 14 with Julien de Sart.On the defensive bit, he made a total of 16 challenges, winning seven and losing six.He won two challenges against Danny Ings, two against Michail Antonio, and two against Nayef Aguerd. He then beat Said Benrahma, Declan Rice, and Flynn Downes once each. The former Chemilil Sugar player was fantastic on air, winning five out of six aerial duels while the ground duels proved like an area that perhaps he needs to work on heading into the second leg.On the ground, he won just four out of 10 duels, a paltry 40%.In the entire 103 minutes that he was on the pitch, Okumu lost the ball six times. However, he was cautious when in his own half where he did so only twice.His recovery was equally great as he went on to retrieve the ball seven times, including twice in the opponent’s half.On top of his good display on the ball, he has been one of the cleanest players in the competition and is yet to receive a booking in the eight matches he has played in the main tournament.Gent will play West Ham again on Thursday in the second leg of the encounter, this time in London and with everyone watching.His market value currently a per TransferMrkt stands at €4 million, the equivalent of Ksh 588,320,000. A look at Okumu’s meteoric rise in market value amid interests from Germany, Spain, and Italy
