Yunus Musah: A Talent at Atalanta (Olf AC Milan)

It was always going to be an uphill battle against P$G, but I think Juric got it wrong not starting with an actual 9 (Krstovic).

 

Yikes. Not a great start for Musah... Not sure how you don't get up for a game like this in your first start but... he looked a bit lazy and disinterested. He also seemed to want to pass the buck WRT tackling for most of the game and that is not a good recipe for a DM. You would think that he would be flying all over the pitch but it was meh across the board aside from the awful PK he gave up. Ugh. Maybe his only saving grace is that the rest of the team looked like **** too.?.?

 

this is why i am really baffled about the way the transfer window works......its open all summer but a guy like Musah transfers on the very last possible day to a new club after even playing for his old team THIS season.....

of course, would love to see him do better and hit the ground running....but its also to be expected that he wouldnt be up to speed yet

 

Might just me, but it feels like Musah has a habit of playing really tight (rather than disinterested) until he adjusts to a new team. I'd probably have to go do actual research to confirm or disabuse this notion, which is something I'm not inclined to do, but I feel like I've had this impression before, when he started at Milan, at least.

 

The penalty was a bit of nonsense. He was running behind Marquinhos in the box (off the ball, not involved with the play in any manner) and inadvertently clipped his heel. Harsh penalty, and not remotely a yellow.

 

agreed. The announcer was quite adamant that Yunus was trying to slow down the runner and intentionally kicked him. It seemed pretty accidental to me.

 

Well, it was PSG so he had his hands full for sure as would most trying to hold things down in the middle.. However, I'm not convinced he has the instincts of a DM and it isn't something you can just pick up. At least not the level he is p!aying at.

 

Yea the tough thing about Yunus is he’s not a 6, he’s not a winger or wingback, he’s not a 10. But he gets played in all those positions.

And when he gets played correctly as a box to box 8 where he can progress the ball at an absolutely World Class level…he gets 30 yards from goal and turns into Darlington Nagbe.

 

You have seen things I have never seen

 

You haven’t seen him dribble 50 yards through entire midfields with a hip shimmy? You haven’t watched him very often.

 

Been a while since I'v seen him do that.

 

That’s fair, but he can do it. And he can do it against good players. What an amazing player he could be if something unlocked his appetite for goals.

 

He happens to be one lottery card we got from England, no guarantees they will become a star player.

 

That’s harsh. He’s already played well for us in a World Cup Finals. That counts for a lot in my book. Clubs in Europe value him for the job he does. How many players do you see fail upwards in the broader European market, honestly.

He’s 22 years old. He’s played almost 200 games in La Liga and Serie A and 47 times for us. Let’s be intellectually honest.

 

doesn't' seem that harsh really to say that he may not turn into a star player?

 

How many star players do we have in our player pool, then? One?

 

What do you think?

Not sure how your question makes it clear that the comment “may never be a star” a harsh one? Plenty of players have 200+ appearances and are not stars but still respected pros.

 

You can be content with your opinion he isn’t a star player and that it isn’t harsh to call him “one lottery card we got from England.”

I think it’s a little disrespectful.

 

Lottery card i can understand being offputting. Agree there

 

i think he just doesnt have a position. hes not defensively sound enough as a dmid (though could be with dedidcation and coaching) hes not good enough in the final 3rd to be attacking mid, and imo hes not really good enough on offense to play the 8, either (i think with the usmnt team we are so used to having mids that offer nothing on offense, we kinda accept it.....but top level 8s are good attackers, mostly)

how will he develop? will he develop? I hope so

because he is elite at ball progession in midfield and hes press-resitant in possession

at some point, i think it will click. but also at some point his age will stop being something that is seen as an asset/something special. so the clock is ticking a bit.

overall, i think he is just young and doesnt impose himself.....and center mids need to impose themselves on games and take charge but hes just a passive kinda player that blends in.

 

They need to focus him on defense and add more bite and positioning know-how to his game. I don’t think the offense spark is something you can train into yourself at this age. But defense is.

 

Bite before you get bit!​