21     Striker     Molde     Norway

Skinny

Mohamed Elyounoussi possesses a natural instinct that is incredibly hard to teach. The 21 year-old constantly gets into positions to score off the second ball – a rebound from the goalkeeper, a ricochet off the post, a poor clearance – and lets his very quick reflexes take over. Mohamed is a goal threat when he and the ball are around the penalty area, and has seen his importance to Molde grow over the last two years.

Elyounoussi isn’t big enough or clinical enough to be the leading front man in a system but as a second striker positioned on the wing; he plays the role beautifully. He is happy to on the ball, eager to charge forward and does enough in the other direction for us to describe his defensive effort as sufficient.

Mohamed is responsible for scoring goals and likes to do that as much as he can. The Norwegian is a terrier when he has his head down and running at defenders. He doesn’t need a second invitation to unleash a shot on goal, although he does need to work on his distribution when running at pace. All too often a poor nudge onto the foot of the defender rather than his team-mate sees the opportunity disappear for his side.

2015 has been…

…pretty good. In fact the last two years have been pretty good. 25 goals in 58 league appearances is not a record to be sniffed at. 13 of those came in 2014 when Molde lifted the Norwegian league title. 12 more have followed this year as Elyounoussi has shown himself to be a regular outlet for MFK; and more than a single season phenomenon.

He has done himself plenty of favours with two very good performances against Celtic recently and has made the step up to continental competition pretty seamlessly. He followed three goals in four games during Champions League qualifying with another three goals in four games during the Europa League.

What's next?

Right now Mohamed is a goal scorer and all of his focus is on getting goals for himself. He needs to do more work creating chances for his team-mates if he has plans to play in a more prestigious league during his career. He gets away with the selfish play at the moment as there are other creators in the Molde team. However, before defenders start to figure him out he should try to improve his all-round game.

His set-piece delivery is actually quite good but when he has the ball at his feet in open play, he seems to focus on unleashing a shot for himself rather than looking for a colleague in a better position.

ll that said, in the last 12 months he has scored two really delightful goals that we want to see more of. The first with his less-favored left foot was a snap shot that caught both his marker and the goalkeeper off guard when a poor clearance bounced into his path. The other, with his right, was curled into the top corner after cutting inside and into a little bit of space. More of that and he’ll be on plenty of wish lists.

C+     Needs to offer more than just scoring goals