“David and Openda, leave this body!” Joking, a section of the Juventus fanbase has been contemplating something approaching an exorcism — an attempt to break the curse that appears to have afflicted every Juventus centre-forward in recent years. Players who arrived carrying enormous expectation, then became unrecognisable on the pitch: lightweight, timid, guilty of glaring missed opportunities, booed by the Allianz Stadium crowd. As already happened to Kolo Muani against Milan on Sunday evening.
But what is actually happening to the Frenchman — the one from whose wagon Spalletti has absolutely no intention of climbing down?
The Numbers That Tell the Story
The statistics from the Milan match provide the starkest possible portrait of a player not yet functioning. Kolo Muani touched just 32 balls. He won only one aerial duel from five attempted, and only two from eleven on the ground. He failed to beat his opponent in three dribbling attempts. He did not manage a single shot on target. Across his first 270 minutes of competitive football this season — three matches in full — he has won only 14 duels from 54 contested. That figure — 14 from 54 — is the most revealing of all. It is the statistical portrait of a striker who is struggling to hold the ball up and play with his back to goal.
Spalletti’s Shift: From Stick to Carrot
After the pointed public challenge delivered following the Frosinone opener — “he must realise that he has not been playing for two years and there will be a reason for that” — Spalletti changed tack entirely after the Milan draw, assuming full personal responsibility for the situation. “I got on his wagon by choosing him as our striker. At the end of the season you will speak about him differently.” It is a statement of unconditional faith, shot through with a note of personal pride. The manager is not merely defending a player he signed. He is defending a choice he made.
Spalletti’s private conviction is that the problem is not primarily positional or technical — it is one of approach and mentality. The Džeko comparison he has used repeatedly is instructive: a player who has everything to become truly elite but must learn to demand more of himself beyond the moments of comfort. “He must dig to the bottom of his own possibilities.”
The Hidden Cause — A Preparation Sabotaged by a Long Transfer Saga
There is, however, a dimension of the problem that deserves more attention than it typically receives. The extraordinary length of the negotiation to bring Kolo Muani back to Turin — a pursuit that began in June and was not concluded until 2 August, with the official PSG announcement arriving first — almost certainly affected his physical condition in ways that the statistics alone cannot fully capture.
From 18 July, he was excluded from PSG’s first-team preparation and forced to train with the youth squad for at least two weeks — an arrangement that is humiliating in human terms and catastrophic in physical ones. He arrived at Juventus having not completed anything resembling a proper pre-season. He needs time and minutes to recover the sharpness and brilliance that no amount of training with teenagers can replicate.
Spalletti Stays on the Wagon — and the Woltemade Pairing Is Coming
Despite everything, Spalletti has already confirmed that Kolo Muani starts at Sassuolo on Sunday. And as he indicated both before and after the Milan match, he is actively working on deploying a potential partnership with Woltemade — a pairing that would allow the Frenchman to roam more freely and receive cleaner, less contested ball rather than being required to win every ugly physical duel against a defensive block.
Perhaps, however, the simplest and most effective cure is the one available to every striker in crisis. Kolo Muani’s last goal came 173 days ago. One goal — a single moment of the quality he possesses in abundance — could be enough to unlock everything. No exorcism required.
