Three ways Ake Arnaud Loba can strengthen East Bengal's attacking threat

Loba is the latest signing for the Red & Gold Brigade

East Bengal have added the sixth foreigner to their 2026-27 squad in the form of Ivory Coast forward Ake Arnaud Loba. In doing so, they have seemingly completed their attacking line for the campaign and have sorted out the questions over their foreign core before the beginning of the group stages of the 2026-27 AFC Champions League Two.

While Loba is expected to play a key role in featuring strongly for the Torchbearers in Asia, he will also be a proactive threat in the Indian Super League (ISL) as well. He brings something different to the fray for East Bengal’s attack as compared to their other summer striker signing, Nsungusi Effiong.

For one, the 28-year-old Ivorian definitely brings a ton of experience to the East Bengal squad – having played in notable competitions like the MLS and Liga MX in the past!

His years of roaming around the globe, playing in different challenging environments, have allowed Arnaud to grow as a forward and become a more complete player heading into his new journey at East Bengal.

Here, we look at the three ways how Ake Arnaud Loba can strengthen East Bengal’s attack in the 2026-27 season.

3. Adding more swift link-up play threat in opposition half

Now that a proactive new forward like Ake Loba has arrived at East Bengal, they can look to play a more direct, faster brand of attacking football when he’s in their frontline. That is because the 28-year-old definitely isn’t a static player, being someone who refuses to only linger near or inside the penalty area in the hope that teammates can feed him chances on the plate.

Instead, he loves to drop deep into the midfield to help his teammates with their progression play and to get the ball into the final third quicker. He is someone who can definitely help drag defenders out of their comfort zone because of his tendency to move away from his assigned positions in the final third.

Loba can be a boon for the East Bengal midfielders and the wingers because of how he loves getting involved in the build-up play to attacking moves. He really likes to play clever one-touch football to get the ball further up the field and boasts pretty good passing attributes to be able to trick opposition defenders with the link-up play.

Loba can allow East Bengal to be much faster and more efficient with their build-up play, ensuring they don’t always have to rely on the wide players to create chances and are also able to do so with clever passing through the central positions.

2. Element of surprise with his movement

Antonio Habas showcased in East Bengal’s successful 2026 Durand Cup campaign that he really likes mobile players who can surprise opposition players with their movement during key parts of the game. In the Ivorian forward, he is definitely getting a forward who can bring that element of surprise based on how he manoeuvres around in the opposition half.

Even when he’s being tightly marked by opposition defenders, Loba has the tendency of slipping past his marker by timing his forward runs perfectly. He has a really encouraging burst of pace in his arsenal, which allows him to soar past defenders to reach the ball in the key attacking areas before the chances can be cleared away.

The Ivorian winger looks to use his unpredictable movement tendency to dupe centre-backs into losing their sense of positional control and also help create gaps in the frontline that his teammates can pounce on. Loba’s energetic style and tendency to cover a lot of ground in the opposition half can allow him to tire out defenders really well and then surprise him by clever runs into key goal-scoring areas in matches.

He needs to be on point with his forward runs to frustrate the defenders and allow his teammates to also find open space to help create more goal-scoring chances for the Red & Gold Brigade.

1. Poacher’s instincts in opposition box

The biggest reason why Ake Arnaud Loba has been brought aboard to East Bengal is to score goals, as the Spanish gaffer will definitely expect him to be regularly involved in scoring or at least creating them. The Ivorian forward will need to be precise with his finishing skills to add that lethality to the East Bengal attack and ensure that the beautiful chances that are created can also get converted with equal conviction.

An interesting aspect about the 28-year-old forward is that he can be a really uncanny poacher inside the opposition’s penalty area.

That enables the Ivorian forward to slip past his marker to finish off chances from close range inside the area and catch opposition players by surprise. As long as the delivery into the penalty area is good enough from the East Bengal attackers, Loba should get many chances to score.

He needs to utilise his sharpness and presence of mind to nail his positioning in the danger zones and finish chances with conviction to help raise East Bengal’s goal-scoring unpredictability and win them key games going forward.

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