I was at Brighton when Djenepo scored a worldly. Looked like we’d found another one that day, so I’m certainly not ready to accept that he’s not good enough.
Moussa has the ability, but for me he is overthinking what he should be doing. He needs to be a little more decisive and instinctive, going past a player before they have had a chance to double up on him. By overthinking and delaying his pass or run, he is giving the opposition the chance to close him down. If you take Theo as a comparison, he regularly receives the ball on the half turn and drives straight at the opposition, going past a midfielder or drawing fouls.
He plays like he has two decisions to make “beat the guy or pass back”. He’s playing the preordained decision in his head, rather than the specific situation. That’s a confidence thing. I’m part way between Tom and Libby on this one. It’s fair to early to be writing him off, but I want to see improvement from him, and he’s sliding backwards more than forwards at the moment.
Ralph's not slow to ship players out if he feels they are of little use to him. He has started Moussa quite a lot so he must be showing stuff in training so it might be a lack of confidence on match days but I always feel like he might do something special and I never got that feeling with Mo El for example. Yes he does need to up his game but I think there is player there that could do good things with us and 22 is no age really.
Yeah, this pretty much sums it up for me. He's still young enough and raw enough to warrant more time. But right now, he's heading in the wrong direction.
Less than 100 senior matches and only 30 for us so far he's a bit like Antonio when he was with us, he needs to learn to make better decisions on the pitch
He's good enough alright, that we know, but as we have pointed out on posts here, there is a block somewhere. I wondered whether or not Bertie, as a more senior and experienced player may just, certainly not intentionally, intimidate Moussa a bit. It's weird how these things work but I can certainly recall at that age feeling a bit subdued in the presence of someone who most certainly had a proven track record. I think too that we tend to underestimate how tough it must be trying to satisfy in a culture which is totally different in many ways. I'm sure Ralph will find a way. Certainly Neil Lennon found a way to unlock our last loanee!
Funny you mention Mo El, he only played 16 times for us and that didn't stop many people writing him off...
Because he never showed anything in the whole of those 16 matches whereas we have already had several glimpses of what Djenepo can do and if Ralph had spotted a useful player for us he would still be here.
Moussa is much more similar to Boufal imo. They both showed flashes of magic that got us all hoping they could cultivate that and bring it on a more regular basis. Alien Lucy never showed anything remotely magic. He's clearly not a bad player because he's done alright for Celtic and his country, but for us he barely even looked like a footballer.
A lot of his appearances were in a much worse team though weren't they (and some under Hughes even)? Who's to say how well he'd do in this current side. Just saying that it's not very consistent mate that's all. And I don't think anyone, or many, are writing Mousaa off at this stage anyway.
That's because he was so bad, he was more like Ali Dia than Sadio Mane for us he was starting to become a bad joke. Ralph would not have extended his loan if he thought that he could use him.
To be fair, he came on at Ibrox yesterday when Celtic were a goal and a man down after being on top the whole game, but failed to show any sign of unlocking Rangers. I think looking good against the rest of the Scottish Premiership isn’t a reflection of how good someone is as a footballer. By the way, Rangers’ best player yesterday was a certain Steven Davis, of whom some of you may have heard.
Ali Dia He was given 5 matches under Ralph so I'd argue he wasn't given a huge chance here, and certainly played in a much worse team than Moussa has. I also don't get the Mane comparisons. He had a 1 in 3 strike rate in his first season and Moussa has never looked anywhere near that level imo. He's looking more like a less skilful Boufal to me.
Have you seen his corner at Wolves?... It's like Tom has said his time here has been disrupted and he is only young yet but some of his skill has been Manesque although not so much this season granted.
Did I say many? anyway I wasn't criticising anbody's opinion I was just saying that he needs a chance to become a player that his potential has shown.