Weston McKennie is already being compared to Gennaro Gattuso and N’Golo Kante after slipping through the fingers of Southampton and Aston Villa, with USA legend Alexi Lalas tipping the new Juventus signing for big things while talking to Tuttosport.
About a month ago, all roads seemed to be leading to the Premier League for one of the most adaptable and tactically aware midfielders in European football.
Southampton had held talks over a £20 million deal for McKennie, an all-action American with the poise, power and box-to-box drive to fill a Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg-shaped void at the heart of Ralph Hasenhuttl’s engine room (Sky).
That’s not to say the Saints were his only option. Far from it.
McKennie also expressed a desire to join Aston Villa and forge a formidable midfield trio with Douglas Luiz and Jack Grealish in claret and blue (Birmingham Mail).
But then Andrea Pirlo’s Juventus came calling and blew everyone else out of the water.
And while McKennie has a lot to learn if he is to make the step up from an underachieving Schalke side to one of the most demanding clubs in world football, Lalas is backing his fresh-faced compatriot to the hilt.
“He could be a new Gattuso for Pirlo, who played with the original and knows how important it was for the balance of that AC Milan (team),” says the 96-cap USA international.
“McKennie has something of Gattuso but also of (N’Golo) Kante and (Arturo) Vidal. As they say here: beauty and the beast both serve to win.
“And McKennie, as well as a conqueror of balls, also has excellent skills in the construction of the game and with his head he is always dangerous.”
Comparing a young player with a legend of the game often feels a little lazy – but Lalas is on the money here.
Like Kante, Gattuso and Vidal, McKennie loves nothing more than crunching into tackles and breaking up play. But he is much more than a one-man wrecking ball, capable of constructing attacks as neatly as he stops them.
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