Called up to the national team by Roberto Mancini when the Italian was still in charge of Italy, Wilfried Gnonto quickly repaid that faith with some goals.
All this was before his move to Leeds United, back when he was still at FC Zürich, but it helped put him on the map, eventually making the Elland Road side gamble on him in the next transfer window.
Since then, he has won over the fans of his current club, but hasn’t played much this season due to a desire to leave after relegation to the Championship, although that didn’t stop Luciano Spalletti from calling him up to his first Italy squad, much to the frustration of some, such as Umberto Chiariello.
Speaking to Radio Napoli Centrale, relayed by Tutto Napoli, the journalist had a big rant about the state of the current Italy national team, and how they like players in certain areas.
This led him to call out the Leeds striker, alongside another young player in Nicolò Zaniolo, who didn’t do himself any favours for his performance against North Macedonia.
Chiariello said: “I talked about the Italian national team, which in my opinion is struggling to do well because it doesn’t have a quality player pool at its disposal. I criticised the call up of players like Nicolò Zaniolo and Wilfried Gnonto, who, in my opinion, don’t deserve a blue shirt.”
He then went on to criticise the lack of proper number nines out there for the national team, apart from Ciro Immobile.
That’s an area Gnonto could play in, but his age and lack of experience certainly plays against him at this moment in time.
Following some disagreements early on in the season regarding a transfer, the Leeds player has made it back into Daniel Farke’s squad, recently scoring in the 4-3 win over Ipswich Town.
