Yunus Musah of United States

CM: Pochettino’s use of Musah could give Fonseca indications after €20m investment

Photo by Hector Vivas/Getty Images

Yunus Musah scored his first goal for the United States during their win over Panama, and above all his performance in the 2-0 win could offer some hints to AC Milan boss Paulo Fonseca.

As Calciomercato.com recall, Milan were convinced by Musah’s time at Valencia to invest €20m to sign him, but since arriving he has often ‘seemed like a fish out of water, without a well-defined role and tasks’, due to Stefano Pioli moving him around and Fonseca not fully trusting him yet.

After registering the assist for Noah Okafor’s equaliser in the 2-2 draw with Torino, Musah has gradually disappeared from the radar, playing around 60 minutes against Lazio, Venezia and Lecce comebined.

He remained on the sidelines in the derby and in the last round against Fiorentina, in addition to the first two Champions League matches against Liverpool and Bayer Leverkusen. Fonseca’s choice to switch to the new 4-4-2 brings the best out of Tijjani Reijnders and Youssouf Fofana, but hasn’t hlped Musah.

However, the goal against Panama under the new coach Mauricio Pochettino offers interesting indications for the near future. Pioli used him as a right-back and as a right wing-back, with the assist against Torino coming from that area of the pitch.

The former Valencia man would probably say his natural role is as a mezzala in a 4-3-3 system but he can still provide a lot of energy on the right side, in addition to being able to show off his ball progression.

 

With a run of seven games in 21 days to come from Saturday, Fonseca will have to work out how to effectively rotate and get the best out of each player. Amid the injury doubts surrounding Samuel Chukwueze, it could be that Musah ends up being Christian Pulisic’s deputy.

The use of a player with the dynamism and work rate of Musah would offer the Rossoneri the opportunity to become more unpredictable and to start considering variations on their formation.

International breaks are much maligned because they take away players and time to work with the coaches, yet this break could for once offer Milan the solution to the enigma.

Tags AC Milan Yunus Musah

13 Comments

  1. So it’s the third coach to use Musah as a right winger. Moncada must be drinking hard with Scaroni to think that he could be a correct midfielder.

    1. Dude doesn’t even look like a winger either. He just looks like he “just plays there”. Matter of fact any position looks like he just plays there lol 😂

  2. Kalulu sale makes them look like fools so that will be their last strategy…

    I also think aside from Musah, Calabria in RCB would also be way more productive.

    Just make him focus on defense and sometimes go up until midfield max as a support… his long passes and 1v1 defending should also be better cause speed doesn’t matter as much if the attacker is pushed into corner every time and has no space to run around the defender which is objectively our current captains biggest weakness…

    Theo is also freed up and our striker shortage is not an issue anymore… but midfield is gonna be even more scrapped…

  3. This guy is gifted but the coach is playing some weird formation where only a few players can flourish with. Wasting a young confident strong skilful mazella.

  4. “Gifted”. The only gift he got is playing in a time where being an athlete makes you a player. I just watched the a Brazilian U15 game and every player was more talented than Musah. Running fast and working hard doesn’t make you talented. Dictating play, passing, tackling, defending, reading the game are all skills need to play midfield and he possesses only hard work and running. Worst purchase ever and not even close to what used to be the Milan standard. 20 million for him just shows how inept this management team is. Mid table here we come.

  5. I like Musah, but he needs to develop. He’s still young. Mostly, I think his positioning needs work. He needs somebody on the field to direct him and help him get better at that. His 1v1 defending is excellent. His ball-carrying is excellent. If you put him in a system just playing man-to-man, I think he’d get the better of most matchups. He should get rotated in more, especially over the next few weeks with 180 minutes/week available at each spot. I’d like to think he could get 90 minutes/week when that’s what we’re doing.

    People often discount the value of utility players in a squad, guys who can play multiple positions pretty well, due to a wide variety of skills, but maybe never look like the best in the world. I like RLC for this. He can play anywhere in midfield, RB, RW, false 9 if necessary. Florenzi is another I like for this. He can play midfield, both fullback spots, even some CB and I bet he’d be fine as a more defense-oriented winger as well. Players like this bail you out of your inevitable injuries when we’re playing so many games.

    1. “I like RLC for this”…

      his 2 qualities are shooting, but the aim is so inconsistent that it’s not an actual quality at this time… and being more of a rugby player than a midfielder in football. midfielders need ball control, passing, defending skill-sets which he lacks and shockingly in all 3.

  6. Develop in another club. We should not be developing players other than our academy players. Pulisic was the one player of the 20 million lot of them that got bogged down at Chelsea. The rest are average utility players at best especially RLC. Musah can’t make a pass over 5 meters and that’s not a good thing for a midfielder especially at Milan.

    1. Musah completed long passes last season at the same percentage as adli who some think of as a good passer and a higher percentage than bennacar who some also think is a good passer…now that he’s look for them more he looked very good vs lecce until they went down a man…breaking lines and switching field. I believe he’s also leading the team in assists/90 but to be fair, he’s also leading in tackles won per 90, pass completion percentage, progressive runs, most things…

    2. Players will develop with playing time. He’s good enough to help keep clean sheets against Dortmund and Newcastle and a win vs Newcastle where he set leao up for a tap in…he’s already good enough to play against great teams…but there is certainly room to evolve his game…just like tonali evolved his game from year 1 (very rough) to year 2, 3 (same age)

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