It is hard to believe that 15 days before the birth of Kylian Mbappé, a centre-forward with similar characteristics to the best striker of the moment was also born in Bondy, a suburb of Paris. His name is Randal Kolo Muani, he joined Eintracht Frankfurt on a free transfer from Nantes, and after just a few months and some great moments at the World Cup in Qatar, he is ready to join one of the best clubs in Europe. Finding a replacement for him, therefore, is not easy.
It is extremely difficult to find a player with the same characteristics and physical and technical potential, so we will look for profiles that share his power in space, his finishing ability and his ability to control the ball and link up with his teammates, attributes that to a greater or lesser extent belong to the extraordinary former Nantes striker.
We will focus on finding profiles that can guarantee, at least, the expected performance of the first-choice centre-forward of Eintracht Frankfurt, current Europa League champions and with ambitious goals in the Bundesliga. A criterion that is always important is to check the spending ceiling of the team in question, even if the sale of Kolo Muani could triple the cost of the future replacement. In this case, the most expensive signing in Eintracht’s history is another striker, Luka Jovic, for just over 22 million euros, while the others are all under 11 million euros.
- Among the most expensive options, the first name is that of Englishman Falorin Balogun, on loan from Arsenal at Stade Reims. His great season will not go unnoticed by Premier clubs but he is a player of fantastic physical condition and great ability to define in front of the goalkeeper. With Gabriel Jesus and Eddie Nketiah as first options, Balogun could be an important sale for the Gunners.
- An interesting option if bigger clubs do not step forward is Marcos Leonardo of Santos. He is a very different profile to Muani but with very good movement and resources in the last 20 metres once he receives from the back and turns around, less powerful and with less individual quality, but with a lot of potential to develop further and be a great future sale.-
- Among the cheaper players, but with proven quality in important teams and even European competitions, we point out three names: Petar Musa, substitute striker of Benfica, very complete; Victor Boniface, with numerous goals in Europa League as well as the Belgian league, with a powerful physique and a lot of projection at 22 years old and Vangelis Pavlidis, scorer in AZ Alkmaar and waiting for a new destination in a higher level league.
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