How are things with... Idrissa Doumbia?

MONDAY, 4 JUNE 2018, 09:09 - lajoya
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WEBSITE Anderlecht has sent a lot of players on loan this season. Now that the season is almost there, we took some time to see how this season went for them and what we can expect from them next season. Today: Idrissa Doumbia.


Age: 20
Contract until: 30 June 2021
Played last season for: Zulte Waregem
Games played: 27
Minutes of play: 1668

Idrissa Doumbia ended up at Anderlecht in the summer of 2016. They bought him from ES Bingerville in Ivory Coast. He immediately started in the starting line up on matchday one and got half an hour on match day four. Afterwards he mainly played for the Reserves.

This season he played on a loan basis for Zulte Waregem. He immediately got a place in the starting eleven from Francky Dury and played just about everything until he got injured on matchday three of Play-Off II. Zulte Waregem is satisfied with the performances of Doumbia and would like to keep him for another year. They would have stipulated an option for this last summer.

Gert Verheyen and Franky Van der Elst are less convinced of the midfielder. During the halftime of the Europe League game against Lazio, they were very critical about Doumbia. "His position was excellent at this stage," said Verheyen. "But by running like that, he does not offer his fellow player a solution." Van der Elst: "Doumbia turns back too often instead of ahead. His passes too often go backwards or laterally. That is a matter of feeling and football intelligence. That can be learned, but then you have to train on it on a daily basis."

"If you play in that position and you always do that, then you are not a good player, no matter how good your feet are," Verheyen concluded. However, Doumbia only turned twenty last month and it is no secret that running lines and such are not immediately priority in African youth training. Giving him a year longer to learn from Dury does not seem like a bad idea. A loan to KV Ostend seems to be less of an issue



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