- Sep 1, 2012
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This is not a long outline?I was going to write a long outline about him but then decided against it.
In short, I am really big fan of Albert. I think he is a quality player and easily one of the standouts of Seria A this season. He is a very slick player with some very attractive attacking attributes. This summer he 100% needs to move as he is easily good enough to play for a top team. He's an extremely technical player who is a constant threat in the top end of the pitch. He is excellent at receiving the ball on the half turn in a transition and has great acceleration and speed of thought. He is excellent at set pieces. His movement inside and around the box makes him impossible to pin down and he is a good finisher. He really is a very underrated player and one who I love to watch BUT he is a second striker.
He is versatile and technically proficient enough that he can play a number of different positions such as AM, WF and CF but not to a degree where you would want play him there permanently. Yes he will cover a lot of ground and if you look at his heat map it shows a player that pops up everywhere in the opposition half but that doesn't mean he would be naturally suited to a different role. His all round defensive game isn't strong enough to play AM/CM with any regularity and also when he plays too deep he can sometimes struggle to influence the game as much as he normally does further up the pitch. Case in point was Genoa's last game against Juve where he was sitting deeper for a lot of it and was largely anonymous save for one or two moments. The role of a lone CF is far too ridged for him and he doesn't fair well when being asked to stay too stationary as movement is key to game. And as a wing option he will always end up dropping central as he doesn't like to be isolated out on the wing and we need our WF to keep the width. His game is at its best is when he has freedom to drift around the edge of the box. He feeds of the space given to him by another CF who takes away the attention for CB's. He has been compared to younger Dybala in the past, not just because of how he wears his socks, and I can certainly see the likeness in regards to the position he is most effective in.
I actually mentioned him as someone I could see us going for last Jan in the transfer forum as we had space for a versatile player to plug the gaps in the front line especially in the short term. But that was at a point before we had Werner, Gil was out of favour and Gio, Solomon and Maddison were all injured whilst Richy was ether off form or injured. Coming into summer tho i'm not sure if that necessarily is still the case. We don't really need to plug any gaps, we need to strengthen our first 11 in some key areas and add depth in defence. Also by strengthening the first 11 you are also boosting your depth in that players who are currently starters now will be moved to the bench. I also think with sales we can actually afford to pick players that suit specific roles in the system rather then looking at a versatile gap filler. If Gil, Gio and Richy go then we can afford to get a WF, AM and CF, we don't need an all in one. The reality is there are more options in the summer window so we can afford to be more picky.
I really like the player a lot, if we did end up getting him part of me would be excited to see him in a Spurs shirt but he is by far his best as a second striker. which we don't play. Yes he is versatile but whilst he would be able to cover a lot of different positions in our system none of them would be a natural fit for him. He has been linked to Juve and Inter and both teams would be a much better fit for him as both play with a two up top.