Rodgers wants ‘hybrid’ Soumare to become a goalscoring midfielder
BRENDAN Rodgers plans to develop Boubakary Soumare into a goalscoring midfielder – despite the summer signing having only ever netted once in his career.
Rodgers has described the £17 million recruit from Lille as a hybrid of starting midfield duo Wilfred Ndidi and Youri Tielemans.
He possesses the strength to shield the back four and vision to progress the ball forward, but his involvement in the final third has always been minimal.
In 112 games for Lille, Soumare scored once, arriving at the back post to prod home a free-kick in a 2-2 draw with Lyon in 2019.
The 22-year-old’s first season at City is likely to be one of adjustment, and Rodgers wants to ignite an attacking instinct in him to make him more of a threat going forward.
Rodgers said: “The reason for bringing him in is the gap we had in the squad.
“Whenever we lost Wilf, we lost that physicality out of the game – that power, height and dominance – and then when we lost Youri out of the team, we missed someone who could make the last pass.
“Bouba is a hybrid of both. He can play with Youri and also with Wilf.
“You see his qualities. He’s only going to get better.
“He’s 22 and coming into the Premier League and you see he takes lots of touches at the moment.
“So he’ll learn in time that the intensity and speed of the Premier League will limit his touches. But that will help his game.
“Overall, he’s a really exciting player with his running power and ability.
“And we want to get him up there – he hasn’t scored a lot of goals because he has been more played as a sitter behind in the game but we feel he can get forward more and threaten the goal a little more. You’ll see that over the course of the season. I’m just delighted to have someone of that quality who also has a lot of growth left in him.”
Soumare made his Premier League and home debut at the weekend as City beat Wolves 1-0, the Frenchman playing the final halfhour after he was introduced alongside fellow summer signing Jannik Vestergaard.
City also changed formation, from a 4-2-3-1 to a 3-5-2, Soumare joining Ndidi and Tielemans in central midfield.
Rodgers was pleased with how the change in system worked, albeit Wolves kept up the pressure and may have considered themselves unlucky not to get an equaliser.
“I was delighted with that,” said Rodgers. “I felt we could change the game.
“At this stage of the season when you don’t quite have your full fitness and you are playing the system we were playing – 4-2-3-1 – against a 3-4-3, as the game wears on the spaces can start to open up, so our plan was that at some point we would move to 3-5-2.
“Bringing on Jannik can give us that physical presence, but it also allowed us to make passes out of pressure.
“So I was so happy for him because he came in and did very well, considering he’s only been in training with Southampton for just over a week, and hasn’t done a great deal with us. He showed great courage to put himself forward.
“And Bouba coming into the game, he’s someone who has that physicality we want.
“He needs to improve the speed of his game and play quicker, but that will come with time and games.
“We were able to change the structure of our team, and with a bit more precision in our passing in the second half, we could have killed the game earlier than we did.”
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