Is Kolo Muani asking for a bigger transfer? He should learn from the past!

Randal Kolo Muani is one of the most in form forwards playing at the moment. In a market for ‘midfielders’ that is considered to be empty, he is therefore understandably a sought-after commodity. Newspaper headlines link him with Bayern Munich here, Manchester United there. But should the French international, who only arrived in Frankfurt last summer, consider a transfer? Perhaps a lesson from the past could help him decide.

This season he has come to the fore in style

With 11 goals scored, Randal Kolo Muani is sharing fourth place in this season’s Bundesliga scorers table. However, the French international and 2022 World Cup participant is not just a finisher. In the league season so far, 12 assists also shine by his name. Thanks to this, he currently leads the table of creators ahead of second-placed Musiala. He is also showing this versatility in the DFB-Pokal, where he has scored 3 and created 2 more in three games.

In total, he has scored 16 goals and 14 assists in the 2519 minutes of football he has played in Frankfurt so far. That’s a goal every 158 minutes, and a participation in a goal scored even every 84 minutes! These are numbers that would put any world name to shame.

He only joined the Europa League winners before the start of this season. However, he drew attention to himself on his debut when he came on at half-time in his first league game. By that time, Eintracht were already trailing 0:5 at home against Bayern Munich. However, Muani didn’t hang his head and with his own diligence he put the German goalkeeper under pressure, took the ball away from him and at least consolidated the score to the final 1::6.

His performances in the autumn season earned him a place on the French national team plane to Qatar, where he scored in the semi-final against Morocco and could have bagged the winning goal in the final had it not been for an excellent save by Emiliano Martínez. However, this setback did not break him and Muani has scored more goals since the league restart (6) than in the entire autumn (5) so far.

He was already giving excellent performances earlier

Kolo Muani joined Eintracht Frankfurt in the summer after his contract at French side FC Nantes ended. He has already drawn attention during his two seasons in Ligue 1, although he is only getting the attention he deserves this season.

In both seasons, Muani featured with iron regularity in the Nantes attack and was actually given plenty of room to develop his game as an early 20s player. On two consecutive occasions, he logged around 3,000 minutes. He repaid the coach’s trust by scoring 9 and creating 8 in his first season.

For his efforts at Nantes, he took home a medal for the French Cup winner from his native France, in which FC Nantes were successful in the 21/22 season.

Muani is not a ‘traditional number nine’..

…yet he may be the best ‘target man’ in the league. A closer look at Muani’s numbers reveals that he is a rather more modest finisher among the top strikers, with just 2.15 shots per 90 minutes of football. However, he can make an average of 0.35 xG from them in the same amount of time. That’s a respectable efficiency. In a more dominant team, his cadence should legitimately increase and then his goal return should at least stay with it.

But Muani works very efficiently for the team. When playing, we often see him with his back to goal with the ball at his feet, guarding it until Götze or Lindstrøm come for it. But Muani can also come up with a lot on his own. With three progressive lines of the ball, he is one of the elite among the spearhead strikers. But he’s even better in the amount of times he outmuscles his opponents (1.9/90 min).

His unselfishness is then also reflected in all the assists he collects, which he achieves by setting up 3.18 shooting opportunities for his teammates every game played. By the very nature of playing for Eintracht Frankfurt, Muani can’t even be lazy defensively and he also wins a lot of standard situations for his team.

If he works on his aerial duel success rate with his 187 centimeters and improves his technique on the ball with his passing, Muani can really grow into a complete striker.

The headlines are moving him to Munich or Manchester

It will surprise no one that one of the most recurring speculations in relation to Muani’s name is his potential move to Bayern Munich. However, despite popular belief, Bayern don’t buy every player who has proven to be outstanding in the Bundesliga.

However, with a Robert Lewandowski-shaped hole at the tip of the attack, for once Bayern Munich is a speculation that has a more serious basis than just the cheap Bundesliga=Bayern connection. Debates about possible reinforcements in attack are indeed taking place in Munich according to the motto: “There is no smoke without fire”. However, over and over again, all links except those with Harry Kane are refuted.

In addition, Bayern have recently extended the contract of Erik Choupo-Moting and are preparing another Frenchman, Mathys Tel for the future. In addition, Bayern are not paying triple-digit millions, as the club’s CEO Oliver Kahn has now reiterated.

Far more often than Bayern, or even Dortmund, the English Premier League buys talent from the Bundesliga. Clubs from the top of the competition, which is more and more often referred to as a pre-existing ‘super league’, don’t even mind spending large sums.

Two clubs we see in connection with Muani are Manchester United and Liverpool. It’s also completely inevitable that sooner or later a Chelsea connection will emerge. But let’s just assess Liverpool with United, where we have at least a semblance of the situation they will be in this summer.

Liverpool

Bring in a striker who is hard-working, can run into the box or down the wing for the ball, hold it up for teammates or set up a goal straight away? That sounds like something Liverpool, who will be leaving Roberto Firmino in the summer, could use.

Muani may indeed offer a very similar package of skills to the long-time Brazilian mainstay. He’ll make up for his current bluntness in interplay compared to Firmino in terms of pulling and dribbling, as well as physical strength. That said, he may fit into the Reds’ newly-built attacking trident better than the departing star.

The problem is that the Liverpool Reds have already invested a lot of money in the attack over the last year, bringing in Darwin Núñez from Benfica for €80m and adding Cody Gakpe from PSG Eindhoven for another €42m in the winter. Not to mention the signing of young Carvalho or the earlier signings of Díaz and, indeed, still only 26-year-old Jota. Moreover, further serious investment at Anfield should be directed more towards the midfield.

Manchester United

If, when listing Muani’s abilities, you said to yourself, “Erik the Hag could handle this kid”, you’re not alone. There is plenty of speculation linking Muani to the Dutch tactician’s team. But even more common are names like Osimhen, Kane or even Thuram. But Muani is the ideal profile and age of player that a potential new Manchester United owner should engage in the summer.

The Red Devils’ attack is full of players who want to shoot rather than create, and the arrival of a creative stud striker could thus get even more goals from finishers like Rashford and Garnacho, but also Antony and Fernandes who shoot, or historically have shot, roughly as much as they create.

Muani would allow Ten Haag to take his current system with Weghorst as a sort of false nine or even number ten to the next level, and the acquisition of the French Eintracht Frankfurt mainstay wouldn’t even have to be mutually exclusive with the permanent purchase of the Dutch giant.

Muani should learn from the past

What do Sébastien Haller, André Silva, Luka Jović, Ante Rebić and indeed Filip Kostić have in common? They all left Frankfurt to discover that the grass is not greener behind the fence. Haller had to rehabilitate his Ajax career after meeting David Moyes.

Silva is languishing at Leipzig, Kostic is trapped at Juventus, Rebić may have won the Scudetto with AC but his injury woes have only escalated since his transfer and who really knows where Luka Jović is today?

Eintracht are not just growing as a team, the management in Frankfurt are building potentially the next big club. With a large, attractive city at their back that also serves as an airline hub and is itself full of devoted club fans, Eintracht has more ingredients to be Bayern’s next stable competitor than Borussia Dortmund were given.

They have already tasted success, and more than once. In the 17/18 season they deprived Bayern of the German Cup in the final and last year they overcame Barcelona, West Ham, as well as Real Betis and Rangers in their quest for the Europa League title. This year they are seriously attacking to secure the Champions League for next season as well, and although they are likely to be leaving the millionaire competition off the hoof of Napoli next week, Frankfurt are on course for further success.

Success which, as many of Muani’s predecessors have discovered, is not guaranteed elsewhere.

Sources: Bundesliga, Transfermarkt, fbref.com, footballtransfers.com, BILD