A player's career can flop for thousands of reasons. Doesn't mean the player sucks. Poor career choices, bad management, injuries... But thinking a pro player who's widely regarded as one of the best of his generation in terms of technical skills lack "the basics of football" is just pure nonsense. No player can reach that level without the said basics.
Malcom's topic, you are talking about Dembele.
Regarding Dembele, a lot of users had remarks about his passing and movement in the 1st season and in the beginning of this season.
Wasn't his passing accuracy 67% in Bundesliga?
About Malcom, yes, a career can go wrong from 100s of reasons.
But what have I seen from Malcom mixed with EV's opinions and a lack of interest for him lately suggests to me that he is not a player (and probably never will be) for the 1st tier of clubs like Barca, Real, Bayern, City.
Whether he will be good enough for teams like Arsenal, Roma, Milan and similar, we will see in the future.
Or whether his level will be Everton, West Ham, we will see.
I think the reason for Malcom not succeeding at Barca will be Messi and Dembele both being more comfortable playing through the right side. I don't think it'll be because he's a bad player or not good enough for Barca. He can be more than good enough as a rotational player, more so than Denis Suarez, but Valverde is more comfortable with other players.
Being a rotational player for Barca is quite a broad term.
Rafinha can be rotational player.
Munir also.
Paco also.
Denis also.
Gomes also.
Samper also.
Prince? We will see.
I am not saying that Malcom can't be that, and have a similar role to Rafinha, Munir, Paco, Denis and similar.
He is surely good enough for that.
But none of these guys is a gamechanger.
Those guys can play here and there in weaker La liga matches, CDR and to step in in the 70th or 80th minute in some big matches, but they usually won't make an impact.
In a CL quarters, are you happy when Paco/Rafinha/Denis are entering the field and we are losing 0:1?
I am not.
So, being a squad player who won't add too much to a team and who is here only to play/rotate in smaller matches=probably 100s of professional players can do that.
When I say "player good enough for Barca", I am talking about 11 starters and 3-4-5 subs who are either as good as starters, or only slightly weaker, or are offering something different.
So, currently: 11 starters plus Arthur/Vidal, Roberto/Semedo, Cillessen, Lenglet.
Those are players who are either starters or good enough to be starters.
And then you have squad players like Denis, Rafinha, Munir, Vermaelen, Malcom, Samper, who are here to play only when everyone are injured.
So, is Malcom good enough to be one of 25 players at Barca? Of course that he is. The same as Samper and Denis.
Is he good enough to be a 1st sub or one of those 15 key players in a team? In this moment, I don't think so.
And then, imo, we didn't pay 41 Millions to have a player on Samper's or Denis' level.
We expected a super sub and for now Malcom doesn't seem like that level of quality.
In that sense, I would sell Malcom and buy someone else who is slightly better than Denis/Samper/Malcom, and who is closer to a level of players who are on a verge of being starters like Vidal/Arthur, Roberto/Semedo, Cillessen, Lenglet etc.