I know Thuram very well but i think the best person to talk about him is
@Kramerica Industries. I will just say he's another forward who has nothing in common with the rest we have been linked with.
First time on the site since I heard about this. Here's about what I'll say about Thuram:
Physically, there's a lot to like there. He can run, he can get on the end of crosses, he has the ability to play in tight areas with his strength. A lot of this was on display in 2019-'20, especially pre-pandemic. Gladbach was in the top-4 almost all season that year (spent several weeks in 1st) and Thuram had much to do with that. He fit in very well with Rose's system that year.
Now, the biggest problems I have with Thuram are due to his inconsistency, his temperament, and that I don't think he's playing to his size last season and in the first game of this one. Last Friday against Bayern, he thought he had been fouled in the box and should've gotten a penalty - it probably should've been but wasn't given - and when he got another opportunity to try and milk a penalty moments later, he tried to milk that one too, and probably lost the benefit of the doubt because of it. That sequence was actually a perfect summation of Thuram's frustrating potential, really, making an outstanding play to win the ball in a dangerous area, getting towards goal, and then not using his strength to try fight through the contact.
Anyway, re: temperament, he had a spitting incident last year which earned him a lengthy suspension. I'm not going to head for a moral high ground here, I'm just going to say it's a stupid thing to do and something he needs to be smarter about. He got suspended, he got a red card during the game, and it eventually turned a 1-1 game into a loss.
And while it would be unfair to pin this squarely on Thuram, or any one individual player for that matter, the fact is that Gladbach took a huge step back last year - and looked to already be taking that step back before Marco Rose announced his departure for Dortmund - and maybe that was because of the more compact schedule + European competition, I'm sure that wasn't much help, and not getting the kind of contributions that Thuram helped deliver the previous season was part of that. I do believe that a bit of salt does need to be taken with inconsistent 2020-'21 seasons for many players given the circumstances that were being played under. While the Bundesliga did have something closer to a more normal off-season break than the other leagues - season ended last weekend of June 2020 and next season began mid-September 2020 - there was still the uncomfortable conditions everyone had to play under, playing the Champions League games in the space of eight weeks instead of the normal 12-13 or so, and that kind of snowball effect that develops when you get off to a rocky start and seem to keep failing to win games because of the same kinds of late game failures...Gladbach torpedoed their season early on because they kept losing points from games they led after 75 minutes.
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Now, for something different, what I also would wonder is what the plan would be stylistically for Thuram. Rose's system usually used either a 4-3-3 or a 4-2-3-1, Thuram playing as a left winger regardless. Inzaghi usually plays 3-5-2. Where would Thuram play in a 3-5-2? I mean, that's kind of rhetorical; it seems like his role would be as one of the 2 because he's not a MF - well, maybe he does fuck mothers but that's not what I mean - and he's obviously not a wingback. But I'm not so sure that's the best use for him, or how well he would adapt to that role. He might have the size to be a target man, and he has gotten on the end of more than one header before, but the ones I best remember came off corner kicks, not open play. He doesn't play a Lukaku back-to-goal role, and if there's any thought that you're getting a younger Lukaku, that's exceptionally optimistic. And how much money are we talking to try and bring in Thuram in an unfamiliar system? That's not a comfortable gamble. I mean, if we'd appointed Sarri and done something of a squad overhaul, then I can see where Thuram fits in that system, but I think I've written in more than enough posts by now my frustration about how managerial and squad decisions this summer have looked like nothing more than randomly throwing darts at the wall and seeing what you hit.
tl;dr - there's a lot to like about Thuram's skills, but his inconsistencies and questionable fit in Inzaghi's system along with the cost it would take for him give me considerable pause. I like Thuram and I'd love to see Thuram at Inter in and of itself, but I'm not sure the current situation will produce a winning combination for him personally.
