Merlin Rohl of Freiburg operates in a similar area of the pitch to former Everton pair Tim Cahill and Marouane Fellaini
Everton could try and add a touch of magic to their team with a transfer swoop for “Merlin” according to reports. We’re not talking about the mystical wizard of Arthurian legend though but rather Merlin Rohl, a 22-year-old German who plays for Freiburg, who currently sit seventh in the Bundesliga.
Florian Plettenberg of Sky wrote on X: “Everton have indeed expressed concrete interest in Merlin and are closely monitoring his situation – as first per Kicker and now confirmed.
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“A summer move is not being ruled out by any of the parties involved. However, it would have to be a very appealing club and a top offer. Freiburg are demanding more than €20m. The 22-year-old attacking midfielder’s dream is to move to the Premier League one day.”
But while the prospect, who has represented his country at Under-18, U19, U20 and U21 levels is regarded as a star of the future, perhaps any excitement from Blues should be tempered by the aforementioned article in Kicker, Germany’s leading sports magazine, that starts: “Merlin Rohl is a bit off.”
The report continues: “The Freiburg U-21 international initially missed large parts of the first half of the season due to a torn syndesmosis. Although the injury healed faster than expected, and Rohl quickly returned to playing time, the highly talented 1.91-metre-tall (6ft 3in) player often lacked ease and effectiveness in his performances.
“Rohl, a rising star across the league in the 2023/24 season, has learned the tough side of the professional game. After three starts in early March, he felt he was on the right track, and coach Julian Schuster also praised him.
“But instead of further improvement, two minor setbacks followed. A bruised heel meant Rohl missed the games against Leipzig and Mainz, as well as the subsequent international break with the DFB juniors.
“After that, a persistent infection continued to slow him down – Rohl was also missing from the SC squad for the recent home defeats against Union Berlin and Dortmund.”
In terms of Everton’s supposed interest, the piece claims that the Blues have already spoken to the player’s representative and manager David Moyes knows Rohl given that with his previous employers, West Ham United, he faced him and his Freiburg side no fewer than four times in the Europa League last season. Described as technically gifted and versatile, given that he can also operate at left-back where the Blues currently have no natural alternative to Vitalii Mykolenko, Rohl has been compared to Bayern Munich and Germany star Leon Goretzka.
Born just outside the German capital city of Berlin in Potsdam, the city where the ‘Big Three’ of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, US President Harry Truman and Soviet General Secretary Joseph Stalin held their 1945 conference to plan the post-Second World War peace, Rohl’s youth career started nearby at SV Babelsberg 03, but, along with those fitness issues, another area of concern could be the lack of goals from a player who primarily operates in an attacking role. Rohl has hit the net just three times in Bundesliga matches – all coming last season – and has drawn a blank in all competitions across 17 games so far this term.
While that brings a significant question marks, just what might he potentially bring to Moyes’ men? Comparisonator’s virtual transfer tool allows us to correlate Rohl’s statistics in the Bundesliga this season against Premier League players in his position.
Attempting to utilise his height, Rohl contests an average of 4.11 aerial duels per 90 minutes, which is a higher figure than Premier League leader Lucas Paqueta of West Ham United (3.56), with Everton’s Abdoulaye Doucoure coming in third on 2.08. In terms of how many aerial duels he actually wins, Rohl’s figure of 1.11 would place him third behind Paqueta (2.22) and Morgan Gibbs-White of Nottingham Forest (1.18) but ahead of Doucoure in eighth on 0.46.
He does appear to be a busy and alert player, considering that only Paqueta (3.67) can better his average of 3.44 for picking-ups (of loose possession) with Blues pair Dwight McNeil (2.11) and Doucoure (1.85) ranked eighth and ninth respectively among attacking midfielders. Rohl looks decent in retaining possession given that he’d come in fifth for ball losses (8.22), behind leader Emile Smith Rowe of Fulham (5.41), a figure that places him just above Doucoure on 8.46.
Merlin Rohl’s statistics for picking-ups (of loose possession) for Freiburg in the Bundesliga this season compared to Premier League players in his position
Even though he hasn’t scored, Rohl would still come ninth for expected goals (xG) with a figure of 0.14, but this is lower than Doucoure (0.2) in a category which is topped by Chelsea’s Cole Palmer on 0.47. Another big area for improvement is his figure of just 11.11 successful passes per 90 minutes which would place him 16th among Premier League peers behind leader Bruno Fernandes of Manchester United on 43 and even though distribution is not known to be Everton’s strong suit, McNeil (11th with 25) and Doucoure (13th with 19.23) are still both well above him.
Effective attacking central midfielders were a major part of Moyes’ previous Blues sides first time around but for all Rohl’s promise, he still looks a long way off becoming a latter-day Tim Cahill (68 goals) or Marouane Fellaini (33 goals) as the Glaswegian looks to reshape his squad ahead of the move into the new stadium.
