At Liverpool on Tuesday night, the contract situations of Mohamed Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Virgil van Dijk will be hanging in the sky at Anfield. To impress.
Jonathan David may already be on store shelves, but if Lille puts up a big performance against the Reds in the Champions League, everyone will be talking about him.
As you can see from this window, centre-forward is one of the most difficult positions to recruit a player for, but this is a striker in his prime entering the final six months of his career.
Last year was an exceptional year for the Canadian striker, with only three players – Salah, Harry Kane and Kylian Mbappe – having more goals and assists than David, who turned 25 on January 14.
Scoring a goal every 86 minutes on average, David is obsessed with getting the ball in the back of the net. According to one of his former bosses, this is his main trait.
“I was a coach, and I’ve been a coach since 2008. He’s the player who impressed me the most. He’s amazing.” Former Lille manager Jocelyn Gurbennec said: sky sports.
“He’s always focused on his job, on the game, on scoring. No one can distract him from that. He’s always focused, very quiet, very focused.
“He loves football and he loves training.” This has been clearly evident during Gourbenneck’s season in charge of French champions Lille in 2021-22.
David was the team’s talisman, scoring 22 goals that season. But despite his status, he refused to take leave.
David has scored four goals in the Champions League so far this season.
A day after playing 90 minutes in a Ligue 1 game in that period, the striker was told to only undergo recovery sessions with players who were on the bench or not taking part in training.
But there was David on the training ground, with his boots on and ready to go. Why? Desire to score.
“He showed up and said, ‘I want to train.’” Gourvennec added.
“I had the staff speak to him and there was a bit of an issue because he didn’t agree with the decision that he couldn’t train that morning after playing 90 minutes yesterday.
“Because there was another game in four days. And he said, ‘I don’t understand. I’m healthy. I was healthy yesterday. And I have to train because I have to score goals.’ “It’s amazing that a coach has such a player.”
Since Gurvennec’s season with David at Lille, the Canadian forward has scored 26 goals in each of his two full seasons at Lille.
With 17 goals in 30 games so far this season, he is likely to reach or even surpass that mark again.
Most of his goals come from inside the penalty area. The penalty area is where he thrives. Especially on the biggest stages, you can feel the right place, right time with David.
Many of David’s goals come from shots in the penalty area.
He scored four Champions League goals against Atletico Madrid, Juventus and Real Madrid.
Gurvenek said of David’s finishing skills: “He is very good at maintaining his composure and positioning himself in front of goal in the penalty area and not always putting in effort.”
“He scores a goal from a meter out at the back post. Yes, I can score easily too, but for Jonathan he is always alone in these situations and the ball gets to him like a magnet. In the penalty area he always has that space. “It’s like the science of games.”
But scoring goals isn’t the only aspect of David’s game. Three seasons ago, the forward failed to record a single assist in the 2021-22 campaign.
But since then he has recorded 20 assists in the last two and a half years.
“He always plays for the team and loves to score, but he is always happy when he can give an assist to a team-mate,” Gurbennec said.
“He hits 12km every game. Those numbers are like a midfielder. He’s always putting in a high-intensity effort.”
“If you have to play two games a week, every three or four days, it’s not a problem because the recovery level is high.”
David ranks fourth in goal participation in 2024.
Judging by all these skills and the goals that come with them, it’s hard to believe why David wasn’t selected sooner.
After all, his talents have been well-documented for some time. It has been four years since he led Lille to Ligue 1 championship in 2021.
But there is interest from all over Europe. At least four Premier League clubs are understood to be keen on signing the striker in 2025, with interest from Chelsea and West Ham made public last summer.
“He didn’t want to stay this long, but the club didn’t open the door for him,” Gourvennec added. “Now he is in a good position to make his own choices.
“The club didn’t want him to leave. It wasn’t his decision, but he respected that decision and the other players in the team.”
And when David heads to Anfield on Tuesday night, it may not be his last action at a Premier League stadium. “I don’t know if I could find myself anywhere else but the Premier League,” the striker said in 2022.
British audiences may have to get used to David playing defense.
