Player Focus: Megabuys Moutinho and James Battle for One Place

Jeremy Toulalan doesn’t like talking much, but when he does, it’s worth listening. The Monaco midfielder is a team man who keeps his calm along with his counsel - sitting, observing and making sure the bigger names around him can play. When someone of Toulalan’s experience and sang froid genuinely enthuses about a player, it means something.

“My old teammate Santi Cazorla is a phenomenon,” he recently told France Football of his time at Malaga, “in the true sense of the word. I’m surprised that he isn’t at Real Madrid! I played alongside him in the first season (there); right foot, left foot, he’s just amazing. You really can’t imagine. He’s the same sort of bloke as Moutinho at Monaco; they just love the ball.”

Even if an endorsement from Toulalan is worth having, Moutinho has that effect on most who see him. He is, quite simply, a natural. Now 26, Moutinho made his first-team debut for Sporting Clube de Portugal at 18, made his international bow for Portugal at the same age and was Sporting captain by the time he was 20.

When he arrived at Monaco in May, in a double deal with Porto teammate James Rodriguez for a combined €70m, it was a game-changing signing for the Principality club. Sure, Radamel Falcao - who followed a few weeks later - is a bigger name than either, but the fact is that Moutinho and James were desired by Europe’s very best.

The Colombian, another teenage prodigy who debuted for Porto at 19 after arriving from Banfield, had been watched to the point of stalking by both Manchester United and Juventus for over a year. Both of these players appeared destined to challenge for the continent’s biggest prizes with no further delay. That they arrived on the Cote d’Azur, and that they arrived together, showed Monaco’s desire and ability not just to attract marquee names, but to build a team of champions.

So given their knowledge of each other’s games, their success dovetailing together in northern Portugal and their divergent qualities – Moutinho the box-to-box kingpin, James the explosive, goalscoring winger – it was a strange sensation to see the elder make his debut at the expense of the younger in Sunday night’s top-of-the-table clash at Marseille.

With James on the bench as an ultimately unused substitute, Moutinho played a far more advanced role than he is accustomed to, as a number ten-cum-second striker. In the end, Claudio Ranieri’s choices couldn’t be disputed. Monaco came from a goal down to end Marseille’s 100% record and go to the top of the nascent table and Moutinho did his job very well, playing four key passes including setting up the winner for Emmanuel Riviere with a trademark through ball. The Portuguese had nearly bagged the equaliser for himself, but miscued the excellent Layvin Kurzawa’s inviting cross on the six-yard line and Falcao came in behind him to clean up.

Ranieri’s deployment of Moutinho wasn’t completely plucked out of thin air. He played the advanced role sporadically in his younger days at Sporting, has the ability with a final pass to flourish there and has been working on his shooting – despite the air shot – with fellow ex-Porto legend Maniche over the past year.

Yet one can’t help feeling that a player as busy as Moutinho must have been a little frustrated. He likes to be constantly involved, as he always was in Porto’s midfield three. At the Velodrome, he had just 51 touches as compared to midfield anchor Mounir Obbadi’s 70 or even Kurzawa’s 67. Harsh as it would be on the impressive Obbadi (or the incoming €20m man Geoffrey Kondogbia), Moutinho being stationed next to Toulalan makes a certain kind of sense in the current 4-2-3-1 shape.

There is also the question of where it leaves James. Adept either cutting in from the right onto his left foot or playing just behind the centre-forward, he is the player with the ability to excite crowds more than anybody else in the current squad. It was in the central role that the 22-year-old so thrived in the opening game of the Ligue 1 season – his only start to date – at Bordeaux.

Though it was Riviere, who came on as substitute for James, who eventually broke the deadlock, it was the Colombian who did as much as anyone to soften the home side up during a first-half onslaught which should have yielded earlier reward. James only played two key passes (as opposed to Moutinho’s four against Marseille), but completed a dribble and had more efforts on goal, including one shot that forced Cedric Carrasso to tip away at full stretch.

The stats are fairly indicative of the main differences that Moutinho and James bring to the role. Maybe in the medium-term Ranieri will take this into account, using Moutinho in away games (where he can drop to help out if the team is under pressure) and James at the Stade Louis II when the demand is that Monaco make the running. As a starter rather than a mere substitute, the latter certainly would have helped in the turgid 0-0 draw with Toulouse in the previous week, especially given his superior finishing ability.

The problem for James at the moment is that he looks unlikely to get a chance on the wing. Teenagers Lucas Ocampos and Yannick Ferreira-Carrasco have been simply outstanding on the flanks thus far, and Ranieri clearly has a lot of faith in both. It is laudable that the former Chelsea coach is happy to pick on merit rather than on price tag – and to the credit of the club’s board that they seem prepared to let him do so.

In the meantime, it looks as if Moutinho and James can’t fit in the same team. No doubt tactics, fitness and form will change among the squad over the season, but for now it’s the latest unbelievable development for a club that were in Ligue 2 last season.