One of El Khannouss' former coaches at Genk, Michel Ribeiro, was most impressed with his awareness on the ball. Ribeiro said: "I used to tell people that he had eyes in his back, because he sees everything. When you watch him, you see he is always checking around him and looking over his shoulders. That was something I talked about with him when he began starting for the first-team at Genk, that he needed to constantly check his back. They call it 'scanning' but, for me, it's just checking your shoulders to see where the spaces are."