Games like this proves how useless he is as lone CF, unless he scores. His scoring/useless ratio is bad.
But he runs, Goodfella?
What useful stuff does a conventional CF do, besides scoring?
Didn't he just come from a game where he didn't score but he made a great assist to a goal that killed the game?
As for this game, his solo-pressing won us the ball just outside their box a few minutes into the game, which his teammates then made nothing of.
He then beat Koulibaly to a ball and managed to start a counter that looked dangerous for a second until Paqueta messed it up.
He made himself available, kept their defenders on their toes, was often the first one to the ball even against faster and physically stronger players like Koulibaly, earned rather than got gifted all the (half) chances he had.
If he fucked up, then he sometimes found ways to immediately redeem himself, like when he intercepted/deflected the ball late in the first half right after a wrong pass that was supposed to go to Suso.
This wasn't his night though. Best chance he earns is with his weaker foot. What could've been an assist turns into a foul. Passes from him and to him were wrong by the slightest margins. Him and Paqueta show they still need more time to form an understanding.
Great performance? Definitely not.
Useless? If this is useless then you should see Icardi's contribution when he's not scoring.
There are better target men and ball players out there - some of them are former teammates - but he outperformed all of them so far in what is generally seen as a mess of a team that makes life hard for "poachers" like him.
We now have a new CF who also works hard off-ball and who "fed off Kouame" in his previous club.
I'm glad we got a relatively cheap(salary-wise esp) CF instead of shooting ourselves in the foot again with a new Higuain.
I don't know about you, but I hope both succeed here so we don't waste more mercati and funds on CFs again.
