Lille forward Victor Osimhen was named as the fifth most valuable player in Ligue 1, according to the CIES Football Observatory’s biannual transfer value list .
The 21-year-old has been valued at €64.3million - or £57million - by the report, with Houssem Aouar, Neymar, Marquinhos and Kylian Mbappe the only France-based players worth more.
Former Wolfsburg man Osimhen, who has scored 18 times since joining Lille from Charleroi last summer, has been linked with both Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur after his breakthrough season.
However, he is set to join Napoli this summer, with the Italian side set to clinch his signature for even more money than he was valued at by CIES.
Napoli are in fact set to complete a deal in the region of €81million for the striker, which equates to around £73.4million.
The CIES valuation puts him ahead of Chelsea’s Tammy Abraham (£54.9million) and Tottenham’s January signing Steven Bergwijn (£50.8million), but comfortably below Timo Werner (£80.5million, according to CIES), the RB Leipzig forward who joined Chelsea for around £47.5million.
In addition to the Tottenham and Chelsea links, the Nigeria international had also been mentioned in connection with Liverpool, off the back of a season which has seen him step up to the plate for a Lille side which lost star man Nicolas Pepe to Arsenal.
He netted against Chelsea and Valencia in the Champions League group stage, and has averaged a goal or assist every 135 minutes in the league, according to WhoScored figures.
However, with Lille having narrowly missed out on a return to the Champions League after failing to fully recover from a slow start to the season, there may be a few teams ready to test their resolve in the upcoming transfer window.
Osimhen is one of three Lille players valued at more than €35million (£31million), the others being Jonathan Ikone and Zeki Celik, though former Lille forward Pepe is valued at £65million and Bayern Munich defender Benjamin Pavard, who began his career at Lille, is worth £68million based on CIES figures.
In order to calculate player value, CIES looks at factors including a player’s age, contract situation, international status, career progression and performances. Other considerations include the sporting and economic level of each player’s current club, plus inflation.
Only seven of the 67 Premier League players on the CIES list are uncapped at senior international level: five English players, plus French under-21 internationals Aymeric Laporte and Matteo Guendouzi. Arsenal midfielder Guendouzi, at £47million, is the highest-valued uncapped player in the English top-flight, and the second-highest in the big five leagues behind compatriot Aouar.
