New Delhi: Italian international and former PSG striker, Moise Kean has completed his move to Serie A side Fiorentina in a deal rising to €18 million following the completion of certain add-ons. The Italian striker struggled for game time at the Old Lady last season, initially due to being out of favour and hampered by a shin injury.
He had a difficult time in Turin, playing only 19 games all season, starting just eight. He was given a measly 654 minutes for the Old Lady in all competitions across 20 games and ended the season without scoring a single goal in all competitions. Kean was on the verge of completing a loan move to Atletico Madrid in the January window of the 2023/24 season but failed his medical with the club owing to the injury mentioned above.
Following the collapsed move to Atletico Madrid, he remained at Juventus where his career stagnated even more. At 24, time is running out for the striker to live up to the potential he showed all those years back at Juventus. Fiorentina haven taken a gamble by offering the former Everton man an escape route from Turin and this could be the last chance for him to salvage his stop-start career.
Moise Kean’s Bizzare Journeyman Career
Moise Kean had the best period of his career at PSG. (Photo by Tolga Bozoglu – Pool/Getty Images)
Moise Kean was an extremely talented youth player while at Juventus. He gained prominence in the 2015-16 season, scoring 24 goals in 25 games for the Juve U-19 side, to send the footballing world into a frenzy. The following season, he would make his first-team debut for Juventus at just 16 years and 265 days, becoming the club’s youngest-ever player.
He would also score his first goal for the club on the final day of that season and in doing so, became the first player born in the 2000s to score a goal in one of Europe’s top five leagues. However, his career at Juventus didn’t transpire the way he’d have expected as he was barely given a chance at the club. He spent the 2017/18 season on loan at Hellas Verona and when he came back for the 2018/19 season, he only started in 5 of his 13 appearances all season.
In 2019, it was Premier League club Everton that provided him with an escape route from Turin, signing him for €27.5 million on a five-year contract. While the move was expected to be a success, it was nothing short of a disaster for either side. Everton spent big money on a relatively unproven forward who was coming to a new league and Kean’s fledgling career got a bit derailed after failing to perform in the world’s biggest league.
Kean would score just two goals for the Premier League club before he was shipped out on loan to PSG for the 2020/21 season. It was in France where he showed the best form of his career, scoring 19 goals in all competitions for the Parisians. It was that form he showed at PSG that prompted Juventus to bring their academy player back to the club. He joined the club on an initial two-year loan deal with an obligation to buy the Italian in 2023.
However, his return panned out in the same way as his first spell at the club with Juventus failing to give substantial minutes to the striker, starting him in just 12 matches in his first season back and giving him just 11 starts the following season. While he wasn’t afforded game time, he scored 14 goals across those two seasons. His stats suggest that the striker we all saw back in 2016, is still hidden there somewhere and needs to be unlocked.
How can he revive his career at Fiorentina?
Moise Kean has shown flashes of his brilliant form across all his clubs. (Photo by Jonathan Moscrop/Getty Images)
Fiorentina have offered Moise Kean a much-required lifeline at this point in his career. The striker needed to get away from a suffocating environment at Juventus where he was only seen as a backup. Fiorentina are a side who have lacked a proven goal-scorer ever since Dusan Vlahovic left the club to join Kean’s now former club, Juventus.
I Viola have tried to replace the Serbian with multiple signings, bringing in players like Krzysztof Piątek, Arthur Cabral, Luka Jovic and Christian Kouame but none of them could lead the line well for them. Considering Fiorentina’s faltering strikers and Kean’s faltering career up to this point, they seem like a perfect Joker and Harley Quinn-esque pairing.
Moreover, Fiorentina’s incoming manager Raffaele Palladino has spoken highly about his first signing at his new club and the way he’s spoken about him indicates that he has defined plans for him. Kean is a confidence player, who strives when given regular game time, as we saw with his spell at PSG and he wasn’t given that in either of his spells at Juventus.
Kean is quick, tenacious, and physically strong as a forward, and combines his physical attributes with good technical skills and an accurate shooting ability. Given his pace and agility, the striker can easily play either as a lone striker or as a second striker as well. Naturally, a striker, his physical attributes allow him to play as a winger as well if needed.
Palladino has done a commendable job with Monza over the last two seasons and generally used a 4-2-3-1 or a 3-4-2-1 formation at the club and has hinted towards using a 3-4-2-1 or a 3-4-3 with I Viola and Kean could fit in well in the system. His ability to play on the wing and as a second striker would come in handy in such a set-up as all three attackers can easily interchange with each other while attacking.
On his day, Kean is a quality striker, capable of doing anything he’d want, but injuries and a lack of playing time have restricted him from showing his best form as a player. If he’s given regular playing time and is involved in the build-up play alongside his wingers, he could show his obvious talent on a consistent basis. If not, this could be the last ‘big’ move he makes in his career.
Moise Kean has recently completed his second exit from Juventus, joining fellow Serie A side Fiorentina in a €13 million deal, which could potentially rise up to €18 million following the completion of add-ons. Football Sports News: Latest Cricket News, Cricket Live Score, Sports Breaking News from Sports Today
