FEATURE | No Pogba, no problem: AS Monaco’s next-gen midfielders step up amid injury crisis | OneFootball

AS Monaco’s midfield was expected to evolve this season, but not quite in the way that it has. Last season, Denis Zakaria and Lamine Camara were immovable in the pivot, but the arrival of Paul Pogba, it was expected, would shake up the hierarchy.

La Pioche arrived on a two-year deal at the end of June with a three-month programme to bring him to match fitness, following two years in the footballing wilderness. A return against SCO Angers was touted. However, that game came and went without the former Manchester United and Juventus midfielder featuring. Speaking earlier this week, new Monaco manager Sébastien Pocognoli said that the midfielder’s return could be a matter of days…. or a matter of another two or three weeks. 

Bamba: a statistical outlier

With Zakaria and Camara having missed several weeks of action, with Pogba not yet up to speed, and with Aleksandr Golovin, the only player capable of filling in, also sidelined through injury, the spotlight has once again been placed on Monaco’s academy.

Aladji Bamba was the man to initially breach the gap. A discrete character, Bamba is a player who has somewhat gone under the radar and who has not been prominent for France’s youth sides, but he impressed Adi Hutter in pre-season, enough to remain with the first-team set-up, even when Les Monégasques were at full strength.

“He is a player who started slowly with the Groupe Élite last season, and he has then grown as the games have progressed. He had a great pre-season, and that is why he deserved to play,” Djimi Traoré, his manager with Monaco’s academy side, the Groupe Élite, told us earlier this month.

Traoré described Bamba’s profile: “He is a player who is between the styles of Zakaria and Camara. He is a guy who wants to have the ball at his feet, who can break the lines, because he has a good quality of passing, a good touch, too. He knows how to position himself when he gets on the ball. Without the ball, he has a physical impact, and we are pushing him in that aspect because he can win back the ball even more.”

“Bamba was always in the top three or top two [statistically] in our matches, when it came to ball recoveries, high pressures… that is important for us,” added Traoré, who says that Bamba’s numbers made him a statistical outlier and one of interest to the first-team, who share the same play-style.

He is a player who can benefit from the mentoring of Pogba and who, according to Traoré, can “go very far, if he keeps his feet on the ground,” however, the France U20 international, who recently signed a contract extension until 2030, was himself struck down by injury, missing the two Ligue 1 games that preceded the October international break due to a hamstring injury.

Coulibaly bounces back from ACL injury

That gave Mamadou Coulibaly a chance to shine. He was part of a midfield containing Félix Lemarechal and Soungoutou Magassa. Both have since pushed on, with the former joining RC Strasbourg Alsace and the latter West Ham United. Couliably, perhaps the most exciting player in that midfield trio was somewhat left behind. 

Featuring in the final Ligue 1 game of the 2023/24 season, Coulibaly suffered an ACL injury that hindered his development. Returning midway through last season, the midfielder found gametime limited, but he was determined to establish himself at his formative club. “I was told that I would get my chance, that I would be part of the rotation,” he said following Saturday’s draw (1-1) against Angers.

A dynamic No.8, he also has the versatility to play as a No.6 or as a No.10, and it is this versatility – in part – that has seen him play a prominent role in recent weeks, amid the injury crisis. “I like him a lot,” said now former Monaco manager Hutter. “He has worked a lot on his physical output. When I saw his rehab, [his performances this season] are not a big surprise,” said the Austrian.

Coulibaly, thrown in at the deep end, swam against Manchester City and then also impressed against Tottenham Hotspur in midweek. In just two UEFA Champions League encounters, he has already made four key passes, created one big chance, made seven tackles, and won 20 of his 27 duels; versatility in action.

“Manchester City was my first match in the Champions League. I feel that, game by game, I am making progress in every aspect: offensively, defensively, athletically, tactically,” said Coulibaly after the 0-0 draw against Spurs on Wednesday.

At 21, he is the most experienced of Monaco’s midfield academy graduates, and the one who currently looks the most likely to continue to garner game time, even when the big names return. Pape Cabral, in contrast, is the most inexperienced and the most unknown.

Cabral – a physical but diminutive midfielder

He has played a handful of minutes in Ligue 1 and in the UCL, having been fast-tracked into the first-team set-up, due to the long list of absentees. “Pape is a player who has already played with Les Bleus at youth level. He is an important player for the Groupe Élite,” Traoré told us in early October. “He is an important player in this squad, one of our captains. He is a leader, a player who has a big impact, who is physical despite his small size,” he added. 

The absence of Cabral and Bamba has naturally had an adverse effect on the academy’s UEFA Youth League campaign (three matches, three defeats), however, Traoré concedes that the pair are “needed by the first-team” in light of the absences. 

For now, Cabral is a player that is there to make up the numbers but in the long-term, he, like Monaco’s other academy graduates, will look to be more than just bit-part players. With first-team players returning to the fold, Cabral, Bamba, and Coulibaly will all – to a certain degree – fade back into the background, but not without having accrued credit in the eyes of new manager Sébastien Pocognoli. Zakaria, Camara, and Pogba are the present; Bamba, Coulibaly, and Cabral have shown that they can be the future. 

GFFN | Luke Entwistle