Paul Onuachu: Why Trabzonspor may consider January sale for Super Eagles striker

Super Eagles striker Paul Onuachu has now gone over 90 days without a Süper Lig goal at Trabzonspor, Afrik-Foot reports.

The 32-year-old finished the 2025/26 season as the joint Süper Lig top scorer with 22 goals, tied with Başakşehir’s Eldor Shomurodov.

His overall return was 26 goals in 36 games across all competitions, including four in the Turkish Cup and two in the final against Konyaspor as Trabzonspor lifted their 10th Turkish Cup.

That version of Onuachu is not the one who has taken the field over the last eight Süper Lig matches.

He has failed to score in any of those games, spanning the final five matchdays of last season and the opening three of 2026/27, with Trabzonspor collecting just two wins, three draws and three defeats across that stretch.

Onuachu’s last Süper Lig goal came in April, when he opened the scoring in Trabzonspor’s 2-1 home win over Galatasaray on matchday 28. Since that afternoon, he has been shut out for five months.

The impact on Trabzonspor’s negotiating position is direct. When Fenerbahçe, Beşiktaş, Al-Ahli and Fulham were all circling in July, Trabzonspor’s asking price stood at €30 million, reflecting the reigning Süper Lig Golden Boot winner’s market.

Al-Ahli’s €20 million approach was turned down, Fulham prepared a €25 million to €30 million package that never got to signature, and Trabzonspor’s summer ended without a sale.

Paul Onuachu: The coach-player problem was unresolved

The drought is also the surface reading of a deeper structural issue. Head coach Fatih Tekke has been clear across the last transfer window that he would prefer a different profile of striker to lead his attack.

Tekke was one of Trabzonspor’s most beloved forwards in his own playing career, scoring 104 goals in 241 appearances, but he was a mobile, pressing, link-up striker rather than a static target man.

Onuachu, at 2.01m tall, is precisely the target-man profile Tekke’s tactical model is not built around.

That mismatch was manageable when Onuachu was scoring anyway. It becomes a lot harder to justify when the goals dry up, particularly when the coach was already publicly signalling in June that he wanted a different type of number nine.

The unresolved situation has been met with another complication, after the club decided the best way forward was to part ways with the 48-year-old.

Kamuoyuna Açıklama

Başkan Yardımcımız Serkan Kılıç, Teknik Direktörümüz Fatih Tekke ile bir araya gelerek mevcut süreci ve takımımızın geleceğini kapsamlı bir şekilde değerlendirdi.

Gerçekleştirilen görüşmeler sonucunda Fatih Tekke ile Trabzonspor’un menfaatleri ve geleceğe… pic.twitter.com/vUVlwboV3v

— Trabzonspor (@Trabzonspor) September 1, 2026

The interested clubs that never went away

The other reason a January sale is realistic is that the queue of interested buyers has not disappeared; it has simply paused.

Fenerbahçe, who see Onuachu as a missing piece in their attack, are no longer in the market after securing the services of Romelu Lukaku.

Beşiktaş monitored the situation through the summer. Al-Ahli have already returned twice with bids in a single calendar year, while Fulham now have Goncalo Garcia on their books alongside Rodrigo Muniz.

Any of those clubs can revisit Onuachu in January at a substantially reduced price, and the Trabzonspor bosses will know that a €15 million to €20 million January sale is significantly more valuable to their books than a January-June sit-out followed by a summer sale at even lower prices, or worse still, a contract expiring in June 2028.

A January sale would allow Trabzonspor to reinvest in the striker profile their game plan needs, and hand Onuachu himself a chance to reset his career at a new club, and possibly secure a final big contract before the decline sets in.