Manchester United target Brian Brobbey is in sensational form for Ajax with the striker urged to make good on his stylistic similarities with the Chelsea and Premier League legend Didier Drogba.
Red Devils icon Nemanja Vidic once admitted that Didier Drogba (not Fernando Torres) was the toughest striker he had ever come up against during his silver-coated spell at Old Trafford, with the Chelsea favourite’s fearsome, broad-shouldered power giving even the granite-carved Serbian his fair share of sleepless nights.
One suspects there are a number of centre-halves in the Eredivisie suffering through similar nightmares, an old-school throwback of a number nine proving that there is still room in the modern game for a striker capable of rolling and ragdolling even the league’s most imposing defenders.
Brian Brobbey, linked with Manchester United by The Mirror, took his tally to 10 goals in his last nine games with a brace in Ajax’s 4-2 win over Heracles at the weekend. Backing into a nearby centre-half before turning and hammering home the opener, he doubled his tally with a fearsome volley from the edge of the box.
Two empathic, blink-and-you-miss-it finishes reminiscent of Drogba in his Chelsea pomp.
Manchester United like Ajax striker Brian Brobbey
“Brobbey is doing well, yes,’ Hugo Borst writes in his Algemeen Dagblad column, drawing cimparisons not just with Drogba but with the German legend Gerd Muller too.
“Brobbey, watch videos of Didier Drogba. But a tip; Type in Gerd Muller.
“Strikers who look like weightlifters can score like crazy. About 50 years ago, (Muller) scored forty goals in one season. I mean, you’re doing a nice job, but you’ve only scored thirteen goals. You can really learn a lot from him.
“As strikers, you are very similar.”
Brobbey won two Eredivisie titles under Erik ten Hag at Ajax. The 21-year-old recently confirmed that the Man United boss tried to lure him to Old Trafford in 2022, with Ten Hag perhaps tempted to add Brobbey’s number to his speed dial on the back of a career-best run of form from one of Europe’s more unique number nines.
‘Very similar’ to Germany legend
“I think he is the best striker in the Netherlands right now,” the legendary Marco van Basten, a three-time Ballon D’Or winner, says in quotes reported by Voetbal Primeur.
“Brobbey is really a centre-forward. A point of contact. He stands for goals.”
United’s pursuit of Brobbey will have to wait until the summer, however, with Ten hag confirming that Financial Fair Play concerns have ruled the club out of the market for a centre-forward in January.
The impending and overdue departure of Anthony Martial should, at least, help in that regard.
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