Despite signing for Leeds United late on in the summer transfer window, Wilfried Gnonto has yet to play under Jesse Marsch.
He has featured for Leeds’ U21s, however, in the Premier League 2, playing 81 minutes of a 6-2 win against Southampton B, even if he didn’t score nor assist any of his team’s goals.
It might take some time for the 18-year-old to adapt to English football following his transfer to Elland Road from Zürich, but that didn’t stop Roberto Mancini from calling him up to the Italy national team, for whom he already has six caps and a goal.
The Leeds player came off the bench against England and started Monday night’s game against Hungary, but he failed to impact either, with his performance in the latter criticised in Tuesday morning’s newspapers.
Both Gazzetta dello Sport and Corriere dello Sport give him a 6/10, which doesn’t sound that bad, but that’s only because he actually had a part to play in Italy’s first goal in their 2-0 win, intercepting a pass, which eventually led to a goal.
For example, the former of the two newspapers state he ‘deserved a much worse rating were it not for his determination’ in the lead up to the opener.
Other than that, he was ‘bad with the ball and never in position’, which is something Corriere agree with, stating the Leeds youngster ‘struggled to find the right position’ and ‘loses too many balls’.
They do, like Gazzetta, admit he redeemed himself because ‘he fights with courage’, but that’s about it.If that wasn’t enough, Corriere della Sera’s Mario Sconcerti wrote the Leeds player was ‘the real stranger’ in the game, as he seemed ‘too far removed’ from the level required and it was ‘difficult to understand the choice’ from Mancini to play him.
Then again, Italy won 2-0, so it might have been a simple one-off from Gnonto, who will look to redeem himself going forward at Elland Road to show his national team manager that he continues to deserve call-ups.
First, though, get game time under Marsch at Leeds.
