Boubakary Soumare has become a hit on loan at Sevilla and could be a player City offload in the summer, but his physical attributes are what Maresca is looking for.
When Leicester City conceded a late equaliser at home to Ipswich back in January, Enzo Maresca rued that he didn’t have a “different kind of player” to bring off the bench and help see out the victory.
He later clarified that the different kind of player he wanted was a midfielder with a physical presence. With Cesare Casadei recalled by Chelsea and with Wilfred Ndidi injured, City started that top-of-the-table clash with Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and Ricardo Pereira as the attacking midfielders.
It was a shame, because there was actually a physical midfielder on City’s books was fit and playing well at the time. It’s just that he was doing it at Sevilla.
Yes, Boubakary Soumare has been a regular in La Liga this season. The City midfielder broke into the Sevilla side for a draw with Real Madrid in October and has not looked back since, only missing three league matches.
Soumare’s performances have reached a level of quality and consistency that he’s been deemed an integral player at Sevilla, one who’s played a key role in their recent run, with 13 points from a possible 15 the best record in the division outside of Real Madrid. It’s put them on the brink of the top half after a difficult campaign.
The suggestions coming from Spain are that Sevilla would like to keep him. But much in the same way their finances are putting them off paying Enzo Maresca’s release clause, there’s a feeling they can’t afford what City would want for Soumare.
It means, that if City want to cash in, they will need to find a new home for him. If they managed that, and before the end of June, then that would certainly help towards their Profit and Sustainability calculations.
But given Maresca wants a physical midfielder and budgets are likely to be tight, maybe it’s best to let Maresca have a closer look at him first. City would need Soumare to want to stick around, which he may not after such a run of matches at Sevilla. But if he’s willing to give it a go, Maresca may do so too.It’s not that Soumare is playing as Maresca would need him to at this moment. At Sevilla, the Frenchman is at the base of the midfield. From there, he’s showing decent progression stats both with his passing and ball-carrying.
Maresca would need him to offer more attacking qualities higher up the pitch. He would need moments of fleet-footedness in tight spaces, a willingness to get into the box and attack crosses, and the tactical intelligence to make well-timed runs beyond the striker to stretch the pitch.
It’s not known if Soumare can do any of those things, but the feeling before this season started was that Ndidi wasn’t capable of such a role either, and yet Maresca helped to adapt him. If Soumare is open to it, it feels Maresca potentially could draw the right qualities out of him.
Over the two years Soumare was at City, there were fleeting moments of how good he could be, 20-minute periods where he dominated games, surging past his markers with ease. The task was always to get him to deliver those qualities on a more consistent basis. Maresca may feel he can be the manager to do that.
