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What do Town do next with Isaac Mbenza?

01/09/21

It is the 1st September 2021 and the transfer window in most leagues has slammed shut, and while Town has done well in the market, they failed to shift Isaac Mbenza on. The Russian, Portuguese and Turkish windows do remain open however, so any potential sale would have to be to those leagues or Town are stuck with him till January.
5 goals and 7 assists last season for Isaac Mbenza, who finished the season as Town's most involved player in the final third of the pitch. His contract was set to expire, but Town exercised the option to extend his deal by a further season. Town's attempts to get a fee for him have backfired as Town are stuck with the Belgium after the winger has turned down numerous moves away. What now?

His performances last season

Isaac Mbenza was a revelation last season - at least for the first half anyway. From 28 starts and 8 substitute appearances, the former Belgium u21 winger topped Town's assist charts. He produced 7 assists from an expected 4.98. He was the joint 3rd top scorer with Juninho Bacuna scoring 5 goals from an expected 3.15. He averaged 1.6 key passes per 90, with only Alex Pritchard and Carel Eiting averaging more. On the ball, he was not wasteful. He averaged 1.4 unsuccessful touches per 90, compared with players like Lewis O'Brien and Josh Koroma who averaged 1.9 and 2.7 respectively. Looking at the rate players were disposed on the ball, Mbenza ranks highly in the squad again, he was only disposed of 0.4 times per 90. Bacuna was 1.6, O'Brien 1.4 and Koroma 0.9. The point is, he never tried audacious tricks, he kept it simple, but still managed to contribute to the team. He never seemed to give the same approach on the pitch as players such as Bacuna and Diakhaby.

Had something been brewing for a while?

I think we need to cast out minds back to when Mbenza was signed - I am still not over Town signing him instead of Adama Traore, but that debate is for another time. Town spent their whole summer signing wingers for Wagner's 433 formation, but then opts to play a 532. So you have Sobhi, Diakhaby and Mbenza who Town had spent over half their summer budget on just sitting around thinking 'why am I they here?'. It was hit and miss whether any of them were given minutes in a match, they were restricted to a handful of minutes between all of them, but Mbenza did look the best out of them all. Albeit we never got to really see what Sobhi was about! Mbenza ended the season with 1 goal and 1 assist in the Premier League, including the equaliser against United that cost them a chance at Champions League football. The second season the frustration continued, Danny Cowley clearly didn't rate him and couldn't control some of players' egos, sending him along with 3 others to the reserves for 'bad attitude'.
It should be worth noting here that Mbenza played 9 times in 2019/20 and was only on the pitch for 358 minutes. That was at Town and Amiens. He survived that so I think he could survive this season without playing. In an interview last year, he said that he had wanted to leave at the end of that 2019/20 season, but Corberan convinced him to stay as he was told that he would be a big part of his plans. Sure enough, he did, Carlos found a way of getting him to play football again at the level needed. All was going well, fans were calling for a contract extension, but there are two key dates in the season where the relationship between him and the club started to fade.
16th February 2021, Mbenza scored a stunning free kick against the 'Boro, to put Town into the lead, he picked up a muscle injury on the half-hour mark. This wasn't much of a surprise, given how much muscle tape he had been wearing throughout the season. The injury left him out of the next game and then managed only 1 full 90 in the next 9 games. Clearly, he wasn't fully fit again, with his performances suffering as a result, which then goes on to cause part of the next issue.

The second date and this is the key one, 13th April 2021, Town played Bournemouth. Isaac was subbed off at half time, he hadn't played brilliantly, but no worse than a handful of others. After this, he didn't play again last season. There was never any reason given why, but I think it can be read into that some sort of bust-up occurred. Given his record with previous managers and that Town were in a relegation battle with a thin squad and that Town never stated he was injured would suggest the hypothesis. It takes two to tango, I am sure that Isaac has been out of line, but do the club need to look at themselves?

Why was the deal extended in the first place?

Mbenza had had a good season and was out of contract, but at 25 and because of the huge outlay Town spent on him, it seemed wise to use the option, extend his deal by a year sell him on, even if it is for a nominal fee, but insert a % of any future fee in a deal. The hope would have been wherever he had gone next, he performed well and then would get a move for a significant sum to another club. Even if the fee was only £5 million, 20% of that is still a significant sum to Huddersfield Town that they would receive.
The issue with extending a deal in order to sell, is that the player needs to want to move on, but why would he if he is on an amount no one else will match. Look at Oscar, Hulk, Alex Teixeira and former Town legend Aaron Mooy all playing or have played in Chinese football. They are not playing there for the love of the game or because they want to play for that club, they do it to make money. They sacrifice playing competitive football for the sake of not having to worry about money again, to some players, football is a job. With this being said, it is thought that Isaac Mbenza is on circa £1.5 million per season, so why would he switch to a club and get paid 60% of what he is guaranteed to be paid this season?
The apparent rift between Mbenza and club coupled with the fact he would get nowhere near the amount of money he is on at Town anywhere else, it is not a surprise that he is refusing to leave. Town should just have bit the bullet and let him go at the end of last season, or not allowed whatever bust up to escalate to the point where the player is refusing to leave out of spite.

What next?

My opinion all along has been that he should have been in the squad as we are still paying him. I would hope that he is reintroduced into the first team, but I think it is highly unlikely. I think it depends on how badly the relationship has been strained between him and the club hierarchy, the manager and the rest of the squad. I think the fan relationship will be the least of his worries, but I think even if he is allowed back to play, I think he would hear exactly what the fans think of the situation.
It is a tricky one, I'm not a huge fan of him training with the B team as I wouldn't want any of his bad traits rubbing off onto them. While he is our highest-paid player, so you would think it is stupid not to use him. No party wins in this situation, the player misses out on game time, the club can't use their most expensive asset and you run the risk of ruining the dressing room atmosphere. I only hope from here that Mbenza leaves to one of the three leagues that's transfer window is still open, as him staying tarnishes a really good transfer window for Town.

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