In each of the last two weeks we have done videos looking at a handful of players who are perhaps punching below their weight in terms of their club sides. I think I’m right in saying that this is the first time we’ve ever done a part three of a video, so it seems to be a popular topic.
Make sure to check out parts one and two if you haven’t already, and for those of you who haven’t, I like to make a quick disclaimer that I don’t mean any disrespect to the clubs involved, many of whom are fantastic teams. I’d love to see star players stick with the teams they made their names with, but 99 times out of 100, that just isn’t the reality of modern football.
Okay, here are our 7 footballers who are too good for their clubs: Part 3:
7. Nicolas Pepe – Lille
From Eden Hazard to Dimitri Payet and Gervinho, Lille have had some very good attacking and wide players in recent times. Nicolas Pepe looks to be the next in that line, and he is on fire this season. The Ivorian has scored 8 goals and made 5 assists in 14 appearances, making him the third most productive player in Ligue 1 in the final third, behind only Neymar and Kylian Mbappe.
A right winger who can also play as a striker, Pepe is quick, agile and never afraid to try his luck on goal. The result has been plenty of goals from the right flank, with 21 goals from 49 league games for Lille, including his better than 1 in 2 record so far this season.
Lille currently find themselves fourth in Ligue 1, 16 points behind league leaders PSG. Just as the club failed to hang on to the likes of Payet and Hazard, we think they’ll have a hard time retaining the services of Pepe, who is only 23 years of age. Arsenal are the club who have been linked most strongly, especially following Pepe’s bright start to the season and a long-term injury to Danny Welbeck, with potential valuations ranging from £27 million to £43 million.
6. Iago Aspas – Celta Vigo
Iago Aspas of Celta de Vigo in action during the La Liga match between RC Celta de Vigo and SD Huesca at Abanca-Balaídos on December 01, 2018 in Vigo, Spain.
We have made a part-habit, part-rule of not including ageing players like Wayne Rooney or Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who do stand out as being head and shoulders above their teammates, but are in the swansongs of their careers in these videos. We had one or two doubts about including Iago Aspas then, since the Spaniard is 31 now. He has been something of a late bloomer though, and since he’s currently playing the best football of his career, one could hardly accuse him of being on the wane.
Aspas has spent the vast majority of his career playing for Celta Vigo, barring a couple of brief stints with Liverpool and Sevilla. His time with Liverpool was particularly forgettable, managing no goals from 14 league appearances. A little like Suso at AC Milan though, Liverpool fans have had to look on and wonder if it is the same player they saw at Anfield right now.
Since returning to Celta Vigo in 2015, Aspas has scored 75 goals in 136 games, as well as scoring 6 goals from 17 caps for Spain. His last two seasons have been the best of his career, and the 2018-19 season is on course to top both of them, since Aspas has 8 goals from 10 games right now.
A versatile and intelligent footballer with good technique, Aspas’ age will no doubt put off a few suitors, but he was linked with both Atletico and Real Madrid over the summer, and we don’t think there can be too many doubts that he is too good for La Liga’s 15th placed side right now.
5. Federico Chiesa – Fiorentina
Capped 11 time by Italy already and aged only 21, Federico Chiesa is an exciting prospect. Like Lille, Fiorentina have had an impressive conveyor belt of young talent over the years, and Chiesa could be the most impressive for a while. Born in Genoa, he joined Fiorentina at the age of 10, breaking into the first team in 2016.
He is quick and hard working, but also really smart with his movement and excellent on the ball. There’s still a rawness to Chiesa’s game, as you’d expect from a 21-year-old, and he can certainly improve his attacking output, but there’s a gem of a player in there, and we think he’s only going to keep improving.
Fiorentina are a very decent outfit, but they’ve finished 8th in each of the last two seasons and currently find themselves in 10th. We don’t think it would do Chiesa any harm to stick around in Florence for another season or two, where he is guaranteed first team football, but there will come a time – and you could argue that time has already arrived – in which he is too good for the Serie A side.
4. Timo Horn – Koln
Goalkeeper Timo Horn of FC Koeln gestures during the DFB Cup match between 1. FC Koeln and FC Schalke 04 at RheinEnergieStadion on October 31, 2018 in Cologne, Germany.
The second Koln player to feature in this string of videos, and we won’t mention the player who featured in part two for those of you who haven’t yet watched the video, the recently-relegated German outfit have a few players seemingly too good for the second tier. Timo Horn is a man who must surely fall into that bracket.
Although not yet capped by the full German national team, he represented Germany at just about every youth level, as well as winning Silver at the 2016 Olympics for his country. Horn is an instinctive goalkeeper with smart reflexes, and he has twice been named as Koln’s Player of the Year.
The Bundesliga regulars suffered their second relegation in six years last season, finishing in last place in the division. They are firmly in the hunt for an immediate return to the top flight right now, battling it out at the top of the table with Hamburg, but even if they regained their Bundesliga status for next season one could make a good case for Horn being a level above. The 25-year-old reportedly turned down the chance to sign for Liverpool in the summer of 2017, and he was linked with Arsenal before Unai Emery signed Bernd Leno in the summer just gone.
3. Giuliano – Al-Nassr
There are a handful of familiar faces playing in the gulf states right now, such as Xavi, Wesley Sneijder and Yohan Cabaye.
The only one who makes our list though, partly by virtue of his age, is 28-year-old attacking midfielder Giuliano. The best player in the middle east right now, in our eyes, the Brazilian international has won 14 caps for his country in a highly competitive position.
We’ve talked about Giuliano on the channel before, but we’ll talk a little bit about his talents anyway, since his career path which has taken him from Brazil to the Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and now Saudi Arabia will mean a number of people will have seen little to no footage of him playing.
He is a hard working and versatile operator, an excellent passer of the ball and an expert at arriving into the box at just the right moment. That knack has made him rather prolific, bagging 17 goals in 42 games for Zenit St Petersburg and 16 in 37 for Fenerbahce. He was the Europa League’s top scorer in the 2016-17 season, but signed for Saudi Professional League outfit Al-Nassr in the summer for just over 10 million euros.
He has scored 4 goals in 10 games since making the move, and we think he’s playing a level notably inferior to his own talents as a player.
2. Andrea Belotti – Torino
STADIO OLIMPICO GRANDE TORINO, TURIN, ITALY – 2018
A player who has been suggested in the comments in both parts one and two of this video, Andrea Belotti was in my original shortlist, but I had overlooked him until now. One reason for that was his not overwhelmingly impressive output last season, but the primary one was because he previously featured in a video we did on seven players who deserved moves last summer.
He didn’t get one, and he’s now in his fourth season with Torino, where he has scored 59 goals in 122 games. That’s a very impressive record, boosted largely by his exceptional 2016-17 campaign. Although the 24-year-old hasn’t quite hit those heights since, he has scored 6 goals in 12 games so far this season.
Belotti isn’t the most gifted footballer, but he is physically very good, he has a good eye for a chance and his finishing rarely lets him down.
Much like Fiorentina, Torino are a club we admire a lot, and they are the sixth most successful club in the history of Italian football. However, also like Fiorentina, they are midtable outfit these days. Belotti has previously been linked with Manchester United, AC Milan and Napoli, but Torino’s €100 million evaluation seemed to be enough of a deterrent. Given we are now in the era of player power though, and club’s know from the season before last just what the Italian international is capable of, a 20+ goal haul this season could be enough for Belotti to secure a move in the summer.
0. Honourable Mentions
I’m not sure if this is getting a bit daft now, but since these videos seem to go down well and I quite enjoy putting them together, I’m going to leave open the possibility of a part four here.
As always, let us know if that’s something you’d be keen on, or whether you’re all sick to your back teeth of it by now, in the comments. But yeah, there’s no honourable mentions again despite the fact we have a lot of players who could have featured, and if the demand is there and this video hits 100,000 views, a part 4 will be coming to a laptop or phone near you soon.
1. Krzysztof Piatek – Genoa
Krzysztof Piatek (Genoa CFC) before the Serie A football match between Torino FC and Genoa CFC at Olympic Grande Torino Stadium on December 02, 2018 in Turin, Italy.
Unsurprisingly, there has been a lot of forwards between parts one, two and three in this series, whilst there have been a number of Italian-based players in this particular seven. Our final inclusion today is Krzysztof Piatek, a man who meets both of those criteria.
Linked with everyone from Barcelona to Chelsea and Liverpool, Piatek may just be the hottest property in Europe right now. Having scored prolifically for Cracovia in Poland, Genoa took a chance on the youngster for €4 million in the summer. It speaks volumes about both the insanity of the modern game and the brilliance of Piatek so far this season, that if the club fancied cashing in on Piatek in January, they would most likely get 10x what they paid for him just six months on.
He is the top scorer in Serie A as we speak, and the man trailing him with 9 goals is a certain Cristiano Ronaldo. His start to life in Italy has been nothing short of extraordinary, from becoming the first player since Andriy Shevchenko to score 5 goals in his first 4 Serie A appearances to becoming the first since Gabriel Batistuta to score in each of his first seven Serie A games.
That’s some company he’s keeping, and right now the Polish international sits on 10 goals from 13 games in the league and 14 goals from 14 appearances in all competitions. He recently won his first 2 caps for the Polish national team, aged 23, and scored his first international goal in a Nation’s League tie against Portugal.
The majority of Piatek’s goals for Genoa have been headers or poacher-like finishes from balls into the box, but he’s also shown that he is capable of picking out the corners with sharp shooting from range. His all-round game may not be as complete nor his style as elegant, but there are suggestions that in terms of goal scoring at least, Poland may just have their future replacement for Robert Lewandowski lined up.
As for Genoa, they are in 14th place in Serie A right now, 22 points behind league leaders Juventus and only 4 points above Bologna in the relegation zone. Promoted from Serie B in 2015, they have finished 14th, 15th and 15th again in the last three seasons, so it’s hard to see them hanging onto Piatek for more than a season or two if he can maintain anything like his current rate of scoring.
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