The French Connection: Manu Koné, Khéphren Thuram & the Problem with "Profiles"
Vive la révolution at Anfield...
Before we get started, can we just sit here and admire Asim’s (@asimbnr) graphic design skills? Absolutely stunning. What a guy.
I suppose the silver lining in Liverpool’s mistake to leverage their future on signing Jude Bellingham is that they’ve now found themselves having to rebuild their midfield during a summer transfer window where there is an absolute plethora of high-quality, U-25 midfielders available. After tying up a move for Alexis Mac Allister in recent days, the remaining midfield names on Liverpool’s public shortlist are Gabri Veiga, Ryan Gravenberch, Romeo Lavia and the two stars of today’s reading: Manu Koné and Khéphren Thuram.
A product of the famed Clairefontaine factory line of talent, 22 year-old Manu Koné began his professional career at Ligue 2 outfit Toulouse in May 2019, debuting in a 2-1 loss to Dijon. His promising performances earned him a £7.7 million move to Borussia Mönchengladbach in January 2021, though he was loaned back to Toulouse for the remainder of the season. In his first season with Mönchengladbach he racked up 29 appearances across all competitions as BMG finished 10th. His involvement and development were aided by the faith then-manager Adi Hütter placed in him, as well as the departure of Denis Zakaria to Juventus in January 2022. The dawn of the 22/23 season brought former Norwich city boss Daniel Farke to BMG and even greater involvement for Koné. With Zakaria out of the picture and only replaced by Julian Weigl on loan, Koné’s spot in the starting lineup went largely unchallenged. He participated in 30 of BMG’s 34 Bundesliga matches, with 88% percent of those minutes occurring in the starting XI.
Koné has spent a majority of his Mönchengladbach career playing on the left side of a two-man midfield pivot in a traditional 4-2-3-1, though his elite ball-carrying abilities (96th percentile for Successful Take-Ons) and press resistance allow him to go on slaloming bursts through central areas, ending up in advanced positions. It's a bit hilarious how difficult it is to dispossess Koné when he's in his groove—the guy seems to have his own rules of gravity. A bit like Wijnaldum in the way he uses his body to effortlessly roll opposition players away from the ball, and yet also a bit like Pogba with those breathtaking first touches that take a would-be tackler completely out of the game. As a result, plenty of the opposition simply resort to bringing him down illegally; he ranks in the 97th percentile for Fouls Won. Koné is also a more than adept ball-winner (75th percentile for Tackles per 90), which justifies the positional faith Farke has placed in him in as a starting member of BMG’s two-man midfield pivot. His 6-foot frame and natural strength only magnify his standout abilities.
Where Koné fails to exceed league averages are his progressive passing and chance creation. His pass completion rate is sound enough (86.2% per 90), but he is generally unlikely to create a chance by passing the ball. His Shot-Creating Actions through Take-Ons, Fouls Drawn and Defensive Actions rank in the 81st, 87th and 85th percentiles respectively, though he barely scratches the 34th percentile in Shot-Creating passes. His Progressive Passing Distance is also nothing to get excited over, hovering around the 54th percentile.
It’s clear that Koné is not a deep-lying playmaker—at least not for BMG. He “profiles” as more of a skilled facilitator. His alleged strengths and weaknesses trend more towards the ideal Klopp midfielder of a (perhaps) bygone era: Gini Wijnaldum’s role in the classic 4-3-3. This is not to say that this “profile” should be redundant in Klopp’s new 3-2-2-3 setup (Liverpool’s increasingly public interest in the player entirely contradicts that) but rather that Koné, should he make the switch to Anfield, is likely to remind fans of a certain midfield presence that the club never truly replaced, and arguably paid a dear price for not doing so.
^^^ (My language is cautious here, and for good reason. We’ll get into that later.)
The quoted price for Koné’s services is £30-40 million—a rather meager sum in today’s market for a player in his age bracket and with such an impressive ceiling. BMG’s weak financial position and need for quick cash following the departure of key players on free transfers offers a clear explanation for Liverpool’s position of power in this negotiation. The appointment of Jörg Schmadtke’s son Nils as Mönchengladbach’s new sporting director also adds a rather amusing feeling of inevitability to the saga. There are shades of the Gakpo deal here; Liverpool opportunistically pouncing on a target, exploiting the financial insecurities of a club who feel the need to offload their prized asset. If Liverpool can pull this deal off for anything close to the rumored price, it will be seen as their 2nd major coup of the summer window, 3rd of the calendar year and (probably) not their last.
(More incredible work from @asimbnr)
The name “Thuram” certainly invokes memories of elite footballing ability amongst fans of the game who witnessed the rise of the previous golden generation of French football in the late 90’s/early to mid 2000’s, and it certainly seems that French footballing icon Lillian Thuram has passed along some of that elite footballing DNA to his two sons, Marcus and Khéphren. 25 year-old Marcus is currently a sought-after free agent who was most recently plying his trade at Monchengladbach alongside the aforementioned Manu Koné, whilst 22-year old Khéphren (the Thuram of Liverpool’s desire) has been trailblazing at Ligue 1 side OGC Nice.
Another Clairefontaine graduate, Thuram was given his professional debut at Monaco in 2018 by one his dad’s mates (some guy named Thierry Henry). However, he would ultimately leave Monaco in summer 2019 for Nice, with the assumed reason being a clearer pathway to consistent first team football. It ended up being a fruitful decision, with Thuram’s 134 appearances for Les Aiglons propelling him onto the radar of Europe’s elite clubs. During his four seasons at Nice, Thuram has played under five different managers: Patrick Vieira, Adrian Ursea, Christophe Galtier, Luciene Favre and Didier Digard. For many young talents, this revolving door of management and the general instability that often comes with it would be detrimental to their development. Thuram, however, has seemingly gone from strength to strength, and his minutes per season has only had an increasingly upward trajectory.
This myriad of leadership in such a brief period of time could also explain his expansive positional flexibility. Thuram has played everywhere across Nice’s midfield in a variety of formations, shapes, and systems: holding midfield, central midfield, attacking midfield, you name it. He’s even been deployed out wide on some occasions. Most recently, Thuram has been playing on the left side of central midfield in a 4-3-3, though he was dropping eye-catching performances in an attacking midfield role only a few months prior. Confining him to a certain area of the pitch feels like a crime, and his five managers in four years at Nice would seem to agree. Like his French compatriot (and apparently good friend) Manu Koné, Thuram is at his best when he is carrying the ball in his typically lanky, fluid style. He ranks in the 94th percentile for Progressive Carries, the 91st percentile for Successful Take-Ons and 99th (!) percentile for Shot-Creating Take Ons. It’s this ability on the ball combined with his 6’3 frame that makes Thuram a bit of a unicorn. In theory, you shouldn’t be able to be that tall and carry the ball that well, maintaining a low center of gravity in the process. But Thuram can, and he does it quite a bit. He’s not consistently tasked with as much defensive responsibility as Koné, which probably explains his rather underwhelming tackling numbers. That being said, he still manages a respectable 74th percentile ranking for Interceptions per 90 and recovers the ball fairly often. It’s worth noting that tackling numbers can often be misleading; there’s much more that goes into ball-winning than “Tackles per 90” alone.
Thuram shares a similar statistical weakness with Koné in regard to his midfield game: progressive and creative passing. His Progressive Passing Distance is particularly weak, barely scraping the 28th percentile. He is somewhat more likely to create a shot from a pass than Koné, landing in the 62nd percentile for Shot-Creating passes. Despite these admittedly discouraging numbers, Thuram is at his creative best when he is carving out a chance for himself through carrying the ball (see aforementioned ball-carrying numbers) and harassing the opposition further up the pitch (86th percentile for Shot-Creating defensive actions).
Given his lack of any noticeable physical weaknesses and rare triumvirate of physique, dribbling and positional versatility, it’s nearly impossible to label Thuram with some sort of generic footballing archetype, and even harder to predict which role he’d specifically fit at Liverpool. This is no knock on the kid—it’s the right type of headache to have. He’s kind of an oxymoron—it’s hard to describe any tactical shape, system or philosophy in modern football that wouldn’t benefit from the sheer force of nature that is Khéphren Thuram, but in turn it becomes difficult to know exactly how to maximize him in your own setup for those same reasons.
Rumors indicate that Nice would be willing to come to the table for between £30-40 million. A notable lack of European football has left them in a weakened financial position (sound familiar?) and with owner Jim Radcliffe apparently eyeing up a bid for his beloved Manchester United, it could be the right time for him to cash in on a prized asset. Under the guidance of his legendary father (who represents Khéphren in an official capacity) it would appear that their heads have been turned by the idea of being a key piece in Klopp’s midfield rebuild at Anfield. It seems like it’s going to be a summer of Liverpool repeatedly operating within their famous £30-40 million sweet-spot.
Before the start of the 22/23 season, there was a general consensus amongst the fanbase of what it meant to be a Klopp midfielder, or at the very least an agreed upon list of prerequisites for required traits that had been built up through years of tactical familiarity in the 4-3-3. Then came the 22/23 season, and this familiar list of required midfield criteria was blown wide open. All of a sudden, it wasn’t just Wijnaldum’s sorely missed “PnP” that Liverpool was lacking; it was just about everything. Almost every metric that could possibly be associated with healthy, functional midfield play had fallen off a cliff. Liverpool’s summer ‘22 gamble of not pursuing midfield alternatives to Jude Bellingham and Aurelien Tchouameni had been ruthlessly exposed in every sense of the word. It would take the ever-pragmatic Klopp until early April to make adjustments, and these adjustments not only brought a dramatic change to Liverpool’s fortunes, but also growing debate regarding Liverpool’s midfield requirements. Liverpool fans now had to ponder what an ideal midfield pivot partner for Trent-Alexander Arnold would look like, a conversation that had previously existed exclusively in hypothetical fantasy. Seemingly overnight, the definition of what it meant to be a “Klopp midfielder” had been stretched, chopped, changed, and increasingly difficult to unanimously pin down.
With the exception of Klopp’s first year in charge, there has never been a more confusing and expansive range of possibilities for who Liverpool could be next season. The reality is that nobody really knows what’s right or wrong for Liverpool’s tactical identity other than the people who are actually tasked with making it all work. That is (of course) how it’s always been, but the point here is that we, on the outside, right now in this very moment, have never been less clued in or qualified to confidently comment about what this team needs.
This is where the discourse around supposedly required “profiles” begins to become unnecessarily complicated and mostly unproductive. Some might look at Koné and Thuram’s alleged strengths, weaknesses, apply them to Liverpool’s most recent tactical shape and come to the irrefutable conclusion that they’d be perfect for Liverpool, whilst others might do the same and decide that they’re actually undeniably wrong for Liverpool. These conclusions are drawn mostly from preemptive assumptions about the immediate future of Liverpool’s tactical identity, built on the shockingly fragile foundations of the previous season, during which Liverpool played well for less than two months. The discourse around who should or should not be a midfield target for Liverpool is largely pointless and inevitably bogged down in semantics, with nobody emerging on any sort of intellectual pedestal.
We obsess over shapes, formations and how Koné and Thuram will or won’t fit in, but our obsession is ultimately misplaced. As long as Liverpool exist at this unprecedented crossroads of rebuild and reform with insufficient evidence to point towards their next tactical identity, our energy would be better spent being happily curious as to why these players have attracted the admiration of a generational manager, and allowing ourselves to be pleasantly surprised with the result.
Bosh, Fantastic, The Best. Evan The Goat 🐐