Assane Dioussé     19     Midfielder     Empoli     Senegal

Skinny

A defensive midfielder you feel may look further up the pitch for a spell at some point in his career. While some DMs fall into the ‘quietly efficient’ category, we’d place Assane Dioussé is the ‘noisily enthusiastic’ column. He loves a flick, a back heel, a turn and the occasional Hollywood ball, he doesn’t always (yet) have the talent to pull each of the them off, let alone chaining them together. Confidence is a virtue, fair to say he’s not lacking in that department at all.

2016 has been…

…good, decent progress, solid footing, doing absolutely fine all in.

Here’s a young man who is quite low key at the moment, going to be relatively cheap to buy, and it’s clear he’s going to progress quite well if he just maintains what he’s doing. Will he make it to the very top of the game? Probably not, but less than 1% of professional footballers do so that’s fine. Is he going to be a very impressive top-flight player for an awful long time to come? We think so yeah, and we think he looks like a player who just needs a bit more experience to let his ability catch up with his confidence.

He’s become a key player for Empoli and while very, very raw, he’s coming along nicely. Always looking forward this is a DM who understands shielding the back four is only 50% of his job, and his eye for a pass is very natural. We like this young man, sign him up on FIFA and Football Manager now while he’ll cost you less than £4m as that won’t last, trust us.

What’s next?

As we said this is a player with relatively little fuss around him at the moment. There’s been the odd link with Milan and Spurs but nothing concrete, Torino are mentioned most often in dispatches but no sign of an offer or serious attempt to get him yet This year’s list has been our highest ever for players moving in the twelve months and it’s quite refreshing to be watching one who’s going about his business without the distractions others deal with.

This lack of bombast around him is a contradiction to the way he plays in what is for us a relatively uninspiring side. He’s often scuttling into tackles, playing the ball early and generally making a nuisance of himself whilst his teammates don’t make the best of it. This season Empoli have been particularly disappointing but there’s no blame on Dioussé for that, and his level has dropped a little as those around him struggle, but we’re not worried.

So we preach a message of stability and patience usually, but here it feels like there’s a case to move on in the summer and be quite proactive about seeking out the right club where he’ll play and continue to grow. A good future ahead and doing all that’s asked, a potentially quite interesting year to come.

C+     Ticking along nicely, talk about him now before everyone’s on board