There are not many bright spots to write home about at Tottenham Hotspur, especially in the attack and especially among the attackers who are actually getting minutes. So striker Randal Kolo Muani can, in some sick way, be happy that he is among the talented forwards who are actually starting regularly under Thomas Frank.
The new Spurs manager has not shown that he understands who is best XI is every given week, as Lucas Bergvall, for example, can attest, having been unfairly snubbed from the starting lineup again before the club's embarrassing 3-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest at the weekend.
But even when Frank does play someone, he does not always play them in the best position for them. And that is where Kolo Muani can have serious gripes with how he was utilized by the Danish coach on Sunday against Forest.
Randal Kolo Muani deserves better
Kolo Muani started for Spurs in the 3-0 defeat, and he was one of the few players who showed the effort and quality that did not deserve to be on the losing side of a blowout. His hold up play, intelligence off the ball, and incredible dribbling skills were on display, and yet Kolo Muani ended up carrying no real goal threat and was isolated.
That was not his fault, though. Frank pretty much tactically forced Kolo Muani on the periphery of the game, forcing his best striker to play more of a secondary decoy role as a workhorse in order to accommodate one of the worst strikers in the Premier League - a player whose goal total is held up by a few fools as a sign of competency, rather than a biting indication of a selfishness that manifests itself in tap in goals born out of the hard work of others, like Kolo Muani.
Richarlison somehow played the full 90 minutes, as Frank continues to inexplicably back a striker who spends no effort creating for his teammates and seemingly half the game flopping around the floor like a dead fish.
Kolo Muani was impactful and intelligent in his 79 minutes before being booted off the pitch of a 3-0 blowout, whereas Richarlison got to play the full game. RKM created chances for his teammates and did all the dirty work for Richarlison, who got to sit pretty and shoot to no avail. Frank has catered so much to Richarlison for no apparent reason, and this latest game was another example of Frank sacrificing a better player's goal threat or chances so that Richy could walk around and boot aimless shots at the stands.