Jean Michael Seri

 

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Jean Michael Seri

Image from: tribuna.com

Jean Michael Seri



Current Club: OGC Nice.

Previous Clubs: Pacos Ferreira, ASEC Mimosas, Africa Sports.

Loan Clubs: Porto B.



International: Ivory Coast 13 caps 1 goal.



As Seri has been the subject of inquiries from Liverpool, as a potential replacement for Coutinho, and Barcelona, as a potential alternative to Coutinho, I thought I would take the opportunity to watch him play against Napoli. This is the first time I have watched him and so is more of a report than a profile. Also there are obviously worries that the lad has had his head turned by the interest in him and so is not playing to his best, which is clear, as it has not been a good performance.



What worries me is that, as the deepest of the midfield, and not having a good game, he is not exactly working hard to make up for his mistakes. Seri is very easily bypassed by Napoli's interchange of quick passes and then he makes no attempt to work back and protect his defence. No matter how much his head has been turned by the interest, and that affecting his performance, there is never an excuse to not try.



He does look comfortable on the ball, though his passing has been abysmal, every pass is either overhit or underhit by a large margin, his free kick was hopelessly overhit and he just seems like a player whose head is anywhere but there. However he does have good vision to spot the passes from his deep position. I have noticed a tendency to drop deep to look to take the ball off the centre back, a tendency I hate as it is allowing the Napoli team to compress the space more easily, with him dropping in to a position in front of their entire team.



That was just the first half report, but so far he has not impressed or shown any signs of being anywhere near the level of Coutinho. To be quite frank, he looks out of his depth and well below the quality of the team he is facing. Second half was more of the same, though he did at least make more of an effort to close down, still there was no tracking back.



Seri strolled through the game, even after playing a simple pass, he was standing round watching, rather than moving to be in position for a return. That is completely unlike the way Barcelona, at their best, play. I found it difficult to see what he could offer in the way of an alternative for Coutinho, or in general at a higher level than Ligue 1, as Arsenal has shown past interest in him.