Pierre Landry Kabore is another name to add to the list of players who Heart of Midlothian fans didn’t know existed until he exited the Jamestown Analytics supercomputer.
With the way the club operate, it is now the norm.
He becomes the first Burkinabe to sign for Hearts and the first player to sign for Hearts directly from Estonia after being granted a work permit following a long wait.
Before we get into the meat of the report, there has been a bit of debate on social media about a couple of things regarding Kabore - his height and his preferred position. Some say he’s a winger, others are adamant he’s a centre forward. Some say he looks huge, whilst his Transfermarkt profile has him listed as 1.80m.
When looking at his height, the 1.80m listed on Transfermarkt does look a bit low. I’ve scrolled through photos of him next to teammates and spoken to one of his representatives and it seems as if he may be closer to 1.85m tall. Not the 6ft4in striker some wanted, but certainly not small.
Now, let’s take a look at his preferred position. Even though his representative insists he’s a winger who can play up front, I don’t agree.
We will look into why I think his data and the eye test show he suits a central forward position a little later, but let's look at the role he’s been used in from all the available data on Wyscout.
He’s played 29 times as a centre forward, including in one of his two caps for Burkina Faso. He’s also played 19 times as a winger and six times as either a central midfielder or left back.
While those numbers are pretty fairly split down the middle when it comes to centre forward or other, he’s only played six times outside of centre forward in the past 12 months, and only once this season.
It’s clear to me that he started out wide or further back as a left back, but in recent times has been moved to be primarily a centre forward. This is backed up by my bespoke ranking systems that I have created to rank players within their leagues, like a Poundland version of the JTA system.
He ranks as number one in Estonia when we look at him as a striker in 2025 and sixth place when comparing him to wingers.
How does the Estonian Meistriliiga compare to Scottish football?
When comparing the Estonian Meistriliiga to the Scottish Premiership and Championship, I’ve removed the top 10 ranked Premiership sides and the lowest two ranked Meistriliiga teams to give us a good idea of where the leagues fit into each other.
The top team in Estonia, Levadia, would likely survive in the Premiership, while the next three teams, Flora, Paide, and Kalju, would most likely be comparable to a promotion-bound Championship side.
The rest, like Trans Narva, would be more like a mid or lower-half Championship team.
The data
When looking at Kabore in comparison to wingers, he shows up very highly in his attacking data, as well as some of his possession data. I think it speaks volumes that he has poor data for things like his expected assists, assists per 90, crosses per 90, successful dribbles, accelerations and shot assists per 90.
For me, Hearts will be looking to sign wingers that drive forward with the ball, cross often and create lots of chances. From this data, Kabore doesn’t match that criteria, though it may be tainted by spending more time centrally than out wide.
When looking at Kabore in comparison to all other strikers, we see a more impressive data set. He scores 0.83 non-penalty goals per 90, slightly outperforming his expected goals due to his high goal conversion rate of just over 22 per cent and his impressive shooting accuracy of 45 per cent. These two high percentages are even more impressive, knowing that he shoots more than any other striker in the league, with 4.76 shots per 90.
In possession, unlike his league low of 0.75 crosses per 90 when compared to wingers, he is in the top 20 per cent of strikers when it comes to passes into the penalty box, with 2.42 per 90 and an accuracy of 55 per cent.
Lastly, and maybe most impressively, we see a player who shows up as incredibly effective off the ball. Kabore is the best in the league when it comes to the number of aerial duels and success rate for his aerial duels, plus the top seven per cent when it comes to successful defensive actions per 90. This all points to a player who isn’t afraid to get involved in the dirty defensive work.
The eye test
I watched Kabore in two matches against the better teams in the league, Levadia and Kalju, with the Kalju match being the only game this season where he featured in a wider position.
Against Levadia, he featured very much as a right-sided centre forward, with an average position usually standing about an inch in front of the deepest centre back. In the match against Kalju, he was more of a right forward in a front three than a traditional winger.
Even though these were the positions he took up most often in these games, there were times when he would switch within the game for a short period of time.
For example, whilst playing centre forward, he may be committed to pressing a player or being involved in the press in a phase of play, which would lead to him being in a right midfield position briefly. He’d not instantly need to get back into his position as a team-mate would have filled the gap for him and he’d look natural sitting in that wide midfield area until the time was right to move further up the park again.
From the locations of his touches, you’d probably struggle to work out which game was which.
There are two main reasons he appeals more to me as a centre forward. The first is down to the runs he makes through on goal. He times his direct runs well and this leads him to get on the end of a lot of through balls. I think at times his team-mates aren’t quite on his level and the ball either isn’t played, played badly, or played too late - something that shouldn’t be an issue with the attacking options he’ll be in amongst at Tynecastle.
The second reason is how naturally he plays with his back to goal. He has a good touch, even under pressure, and he drops into good spaces to get on the ball and play quick one-touch passes before moving and trying to get back on the ball quickly further up the park.
Most impressively, though, is when he stays closer to the centre back. He’ll back into the defender, engage with him physically and use his strength to control the player well before receiving the ball. This kind of intelligent play doesn’t scream, 'I’m a winger'. It’s more like something you’d see naturally coming from Uche Ikpeazu than Alan Forrest.
This takes me on to one of the most noticeable things about his performances - he absolutely loves a tussle. Any chance that he’s got to get involved in a bit of argy-bargy and he’ll be there with bells on. He’s at times maybe a bit too overzealous, but it’s always with good intentions and isn’t aggressive in a malicious way.
This passion and effort are seen in other parts of his game. Off the ball, he is full of energy and running for 90 minutes, with intelligent and never-ending pressing. He doesn’t just press the defenders, but gets involved defensively further back on the pitch if it’s necessary. He seems to have really high fitness levels, as his effort didn’t seem to drop at any point, even with the amount of running he was doing. It’s pretty obvious why he ranks highly for successful defensive actions, as he seems to love working off the ball.
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In possession, he is very direct. He likes to drive at players and take them on with pace and strength to hold the opposition off. He’s got a good touch and knows how to keep the ball away from the opposition.
Whilst not classically 'skilful', he does show glimpses of skill in the way he plays. Think fewer stepovers and Maradona turns, and more quick, intelligent touches and agility to get past players. He uses this to create his own chances a lot of the time.
He loves to find half chances for a shot and has a variety of different finishes. Curling shots, powerful strikes, deft finishes, headers, he attempts them all.
Whilst his heading ability is useful in the box, he’s also good elsewhere on the pitch. He’ll get involved in any aerial duel that is close to him and has a good ability to win these, or at worst, to challenge enough to put the defender off.
My main criticism is that he perhaps tries to do too much or do everything himself. This leads him to sometimes over-run the ball or try to take on one too many players, or have him shooting too often and in situations where it may be easier to pass the ball.
I don’t think this confidence is a bad thing and it is something that can be fine-tuned. It may just be that he knows he’s the star man in his team, and will be more inclined to make the better decision when he’s got an abundance of quality around him.
Conclusion
There is certainly a raw element to Kabore, as is pretty common in the majority of the JTA-recommended signings, but I believe there is a very high upside with this signing. If he can perform even three-quarters as well as he has done in Estonia, then he could make Hearts some serious money.
Time will tell how he survives the step up but he has the physical attributes that will directly transfer to the Scottish game.
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