Samuel Chukwueze was AC Milan’s most expensive signing of a summer window in which they spent well over €100m and brought in ten players, yet things just haven’t clicked for him yet.
La Gazzetta dello Sport recall that in the summer Milan decided to fully refresh the right wing position and going into the new season Christian Pulisic and Chukwueze were battling for a starting spot, a talented tandem that had generated a fair bit of hyope before.
The idea was that Milan would no longer lean only to the left, where Rafael Leao and Theo Hernandez play. In fact, Chukwueze’s 13 goals last season for Villarreal even suggested that Leao might have a rival for top scoring winger.
However, football is also unpredictable and thus the 50-50 battle between Pulisic and Chukwueze for the starting spot became 80-20 in favour of the American, and now it might be even higher than 80.
There are reasons behind this, such as the fact that Pulisic perhaps offers more assurances in the defensive phase and thus more balance, but above all the main factor is that the Nigerian has so far demonstrated that he has not got up to speed with the team’s attacking mechanisms.
If the Rossoneri’s defensive phase leaves a lot to be desired, this Milan instead produces a lot up front, scores many goals and has fun. Everyone except Chukwueze that is, who almost always gives a feeling of confusion in his plays.
He had African Cup of Nations to forget, both in terms of the team (Nigeria were defeated in the final by Franck Kessie’s Ivory Coast) and in personal terms because he played just 286 minutes out of the 630 available, with three games as a starter out of seven and two matches spent entirely on the bench.
He had zero goals, and zero assists. Not exactly an exciting adventure. Meanwhile, at Milan so far he has made 21 appearances, of which 10 were as a starter, for a total of 870 minutes. Chukwueze has two goals – both in the Champions League – and an assist in the league.
In the last two matches against Monza and Rennes, which were equally poor performances for the Rossoneri, Samu’s substitute appearances left very little impact.
With Villarreal in 2022-23 Chukwueze got his personal record of goals in a single year (13) which convinced Milan to fork out €20m plus €8m in bonuses.
Fortunately, there is obviously still time to redeem things, and also fortunately Pulisic has been able to reduce the urgency to do so.
