Randal Kolo Muani appears to be on the verge of a winter move this month.
Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United, and Juventus have all been linked with the PSG forward.
Since joining the Ligue 1 side for a €95m fee in 2023, Kolo Muani has failed to make the impact expected of a player commanding such a high price tag at Le Parc des Princes.
The 26-year-old has accumulated less than 400 minutes of playing time in 10 league appearances with Les Parisiens this season, scoring two goals.
Meanwhile, in his first campaign with the French giants, the attacker played about 1264 minutes in 26 league games and scored six goals.
Over one and a half seasons with Paris Saint-Germain, Kolo Muani has played an average of about half a game per match.
While we are not the ones watching him train day in and day out to compare with his teammates, it’s difficult to judge the player based on what he’s been able to show at Le Parc des Princes with such irregular game time.
Since his move back to Ligue 1 in 2023, Kolo Muani’s market value, according to Transfermarkt, has plummeted from its €80m peak at the end of his time with Eintracht Frankfurt to just €30m today.
Still, suppose the forward can secure a move to a new environment where he can receive more consistent playing time to showcase his abilities.
In that case, he may represent an excellent bargain for a team, given that his stock is probably at its lowest point since he made his move from Nantes to Eintracht Frankfurt in the summer of 2022.
This tactical analysis piece and player-focused scout report aims to highlight the key strengths of Kolo Muani’s game and how they were better utilised by Oliver Glasner at Eintracht Frankfurt than Luis Enrique with PSG, particularly focusing on the player’s positioning and role.
Ultimately, we recommend that Kolo Muani’s next team utilise him centrally in a dynamic attack that allows for frequent positional interchanges, while giving him plenty of the ball to maximise his potential.
Randal Kolo Muani Data Analysis
To kick off our scout report, we will use data to analyse Kolo Muani’s performance in several key attacking metrics over recent seasons — the 2023/24 campaign with PSG, 2022/23 with Eintracht Frankfurt and 2021/22 with Nantes.
By far and away, Kolo Muani’s best career season so far is his 2022/23 campaign with Eintracht Frankfurt in the German Bundesliga.
The 2022/23 season was a standout for the French forward in almost all of our chosen metrics, except for shots on target, goal conversion rate, and dribble success %.
One key outlier in 2022/23, which will have contributed to many of the other statistics hitting a peak in that campaign, is ‘touches in opposition’s box per 90’, for which Kolo Muani ranked in the 92nd percentile that season, compared with the 75th percentile in 2023/24 and the 67th percentile in 2021/22.
Likely as a direct result of this, the striker landed in the 76th percentile for ‘shots per 90’ that term — a vastly superior ranking in that metric than either of the other two seasons on show — along with improved goals and xG numbers.
Across all three campaigns, Kolo Muani’s performance in assists per 90, goal conversion rate, dribbles per 90 and progressive runs per 90 has been quite consistently strong.
These areas represent major strengths in the player’s game—finishing ability, playmaking, and dribbling—and will be explored in greater detail as we progress deeper into this scout report.
Randal Kolo Muani Heat Map 2022/23 & 2023/24
The heat maps above show that Kolo Muani does not tend to remain in one particular position; rather, he regularly gets involved centrally and on the wings.
However, he did play the out-and-out centre-forward role quite consistently with Eintracht Frankfurt, although he rotated with teammates out to the wing on occasion.
With PSG, Kolo Muani has sometimes been deployed as a centre-forward while other times utilised as a winger on both the left and right, as Luis Enrique has experimented to find the best way to fit him into the team.
His infrequent appearances in the starting XI also suggest poor squad planning on the part of PSG, given the €95m outlay.
Randal Kolo Muani Goalscoring Analysis
Goalscoring is always a key metric to evaluate when analysing a centre-forward.
In the case of Kolo Muani, the player’s ability to convert shots into goals with regularity has been top-notch across his last three full seasons — even during the 2022/23 campaign, when his shot volume shot up dramatically.
This increase in shots led to a slight drop in the player’s conversion rate, but his shots-to-goals ratio remained pretty strong, nevertheless.
Randal Kolo Muani Shot Map 2022/23 & 2023/24
Under Luis Enrique, Kolo Muani’s shooting was essentially limited to strictly high-percentage shot locations in 2023/24.
This led to a very high xG per shot rate and, in turn, a strong goal conversion rate in that season.
Meanwhile, the season before that under Glasner at Eintracht Frankfurt, Kolo Muani retained a respectable xG per shot rate of 0.16 while enjoying a bit more freedom with his shot selection — leading to the high shot volume in that campaign.
Ultimately, Kolo Muani went from being essentially ‘the main man’ in Eintracht Frankfurt’s attack, central to the team’s game plan in possession, with many of Die Adler’s attacks built around him, to being a support act at PSG who essentially fed off scraps.
At the same time, the superstars enjoyed most of the ball around him.
The vast majority of Kolo Muani’s finishes with PSG were one-touch finishes.
It was thanks to his excellent movement and positioning that he was able to capitalise on those chances.
The passage of play in figures 4 and 5 demonstrates Kolo Muani’s intelligent movement, generating a goal for Les Parisiens.
Firstly, he spots an inviting space between the opposition centre-backs, which he can target with his run while calling for the cross from his wide teammate.
As the ball is swung in, Kolo Muani has put himself in position to enjoy a free header — an opportunity which he gladly takes.
From a goalscoring perspective, the French forward was much more of a poacher with PSG, whereas he was more heavily involved in a wider range of areas during his time at Eintracht Frankfurt.
Take Figure 6, for example.
In this case, Kolo Muani got on the ball in the middle of the pitch before carrying forward towards a weakened opposition backline in transition.
When he finally reaches a duel with the opposition centre-back — just outside the opposition’s penalty area — Kolo Muani is able to skip past the defender’s challenge and drill the ball hard and low towards the far corner of the net with his weaker left foot.
This side of Kolo Muani’s game has been missing over the last season and a half.
If the player’s new club can bring that player back out of him, they’ve got a great chance of benefiting massively from his transfer.
It’ll be about building the attack to accentuate the forward’s strengths and trusting him as the fulcrum of their attack.
If they do so and the player regains some of the confidence that may have been lost at PSG while playing second-fiddle to some of those around him, Kolo Muani is well able to lead the line for a UEFA Champions League-level team in one of Europe’s strongest leagues.
Randal Kolo Muani Playmaking Analysis
Kolo Muani was both a scorer and a provider during his best season with Eintracht Frankfurt.
In that campaign, he ranked in the 97th percentile for assists per 90 minutes and the 84th percentile for xA per 90 minutes.
His higher level of involvement on the ball — especially in central areas — set Kolo Muani up better to provide for teammates than during his time at PSG.
Randal Kolo Muani Shot Assists Map 2022/23 & 2023/24
Note how many of the player’s assists came from central areas, particularly in the 2022/23 campaign when he was more heavily involved centrally.
In 2022/23, Kolo Muani was put in a position to assist from the centre more often, and he took advantage of that opportunity to boost his assist numbers dramatically.
In 2023/24, he started out wide a lot more often and received far less of the ball to begin with, leading to a decline in his goal contributions.
Again highlighting his usefulness on the counter, here we see Kolo Muani with an open body just about to lay the ball across to a teammate entering a dangerous goalscoring position.
This attacker is good at carrying the ball forward into space at pace and, crucially, getting his head up at the right time to survey the options around him and quickly decide on the best next move—all in quite a short time frame.
This is undoubtedly a skill that his next team should look to capitalise on, as Eintracht did with success.
Conclusion
To conclude our tactical analysis and player-focused scout report, Kolo Muani’s next side must capitalise on his finishing abilities, playmaking skills, and dribbling qualities.
As he showed during his time in the Bundesliga, Kolo Muani is capable of being an elite forward to build the attack around.
If he is used as a bit-part player, yes, he can do the job, but this is a waste of his ability and potential.
If given the chance to rotate with teammates around him in wider areas, as was the case under Oliver Glasner, you still allow Kolo Muani to explore and find the space where he wants to position himself at that moment to make the biggest impact — an excellent situation for the intelligent player he is.
However, he should spend most of his time centrally.
Few attackers are so comfortable picking the ball up in central areas, driving fearlessly at defenders, and gliding past them, as we saw this forward do on many occasions with Die Adler.
Crucially, the attacker should be a key player in the attack.
He should see plenty of the ball, be used to bring others into play and be given the freedom to take on defenders and carry the ball over long distances himself.
