Running out of patience with this dude. Lahoz is a busch league ref for sure and was a pretty clear flex, which from a ref, is unacceptable and I agree this had a racist, bully-like twinge of picking on the young black guy to it.
It still doesn’t change the fact that Ousmane still has to take responsibility for this. He’s yet to really have a real run in this team since he’s been here and now was a great time for him to get that look. Now, he’s out for two more matches and loses match rhythm yet again. I hear all this stuff in the press and players about “how hard he’s working, his dedication” blah blah blah but moments like this and him clearly not taking care of his body, the tardiness at training, all of this indicates otherwise. A kid in his situation and how he’s been playing really needs to at the very least demonstrate professionalism and he simply doesn’t. And this is just off the field.
On the field, he is chaotic and reckless. He dribbles into alleys and danger way too frequently, he tries to go alone instead of linking up with his teammates more and his passing is very inaccurate. His goal came off of a transition from a turnover, I think with the time and space he had, just about any of our forwards would have scored in his position. He had a much easier chance to convert in the 2nd half and his finish was just lulz, blasted it into row Z. It’s a shame really, everyone can see the raw talent: the dribbling ability, the pace, the dynamism but his lack of composure, intelligence and professionalism I think is going to prevent him from being the player he could be.
I’m sure if we had a better coach, he might be better developed but even still I’m skeptical about that. Especially as a forward, you have to have a lot of intelligence or just raw instincts so keen that it can blend into our system and I just don’t think he has either. His natural characteristics as a player suit a counter attacking team more in a lot of the same ways Frankie suits us and I just don’t see enough development of his understanding of the positional aspects our play for him to be someone we can count on long term.
I say he either shows something this season or he, along with Rakitic, need to be shown the door. Plain and simple. I know this seems like a bash but I’ve been very patient with my judgements of him and I’ve really wanted this to work but this game combined with his game against Bilbao really worry me.