The France winger has endured a difficult start to life in Ligue 1 having failed to convince Luis Enrique in the early weeks of the season
Ousmane Dembele wasn't the only Paris Saint-Germain player to struggle as the Parisians traveled to take on Newcastle in the Champions League in early October. But he was the one who was offered the singular moment that could have changed the tie.
Midway through the first half, the France winger peeled away at the back post, creating a few yards between himself and Newcastle left-back Dan Burn. Kylian Mbappe delivered the perfect pass, a teasing, floating ball that fell into Dembele's path. And with one swing of his left boot, the winger put it half a yard outside of the post.
It was a passage of play that summarised Dembele's time in Paris so far — and perhaps his career at large. He is an immensely-talented footballer, who makes the right runs, dribbles around opponents with relative ease, and comprehends spaces and angles like few others can. But when the key moments come, Dembele doesn't deliver. Against Newcastle, he missed two big chances. Against Clermont Foot a few days earlier, he failed to convert despite getting four relativelyeasy opportunities in a 0-0 draw.
Factor in the missed passes, the misplaced crosses and the poor decisions, and Dembele begins to look like the perfect wide attacking player until he gets into the box. This much was perhaps already known after six relatively miserable seasons at Barcelona, but his move to PSG was supposed to change that.
Instead, the old Dembele is back, the player who promises much, but offers ultimately little. A new dawn has yielded the same old disappointing results so far.
Getty ImagesWhy PSG signed him
Despite his ups and downs at Barca, there was some sense in PSG triggering Dembele's €50 million (£43m/$55m) release clause in August. After being on the chopping block for around two years prior, the 26-year-old had enjoyed a remarkable turnaround under Xavi.
For 18 months he was, in fact, one of the best wingers in La Liga. During his last two seasons at Camp Nou, Dembele scored 10 goals and assisted a further 22. His understanding with Robert Lewandowski in the Barca attack, meanwhile, was crucial as the Blaugrana battled their way to a first Liga title in three years.
Dembele, for the first time since his breakout season at Borussia Dortmund in 2016, was making the right decisions. Or, at least, he was making the wrong ones on fewer occasions. He scored goals against Atletico Madrid and Athletic Club. He produced wonderful assists against Real Valladolid and Viktoria Plzen. This was a player who was delivering on his promise.
Furthermore, when he didn't play, Barcelona were markedly worse. The winger has always had issues with injuries, and they cropped up again in January when he picked up a hamstring issue. Dembele missed nearly four months, and Barca turned to Raphinha in his stead. And while the Brazilian didn't exactly flop, Barca dropped eight points and crashed out of the Copa del Rey when Dembele was sidelined. They scored fewer, conceded more, and Lewandowski, who was previously on pace for 30 league goals, finished the campaign with just 23.
Dembele wasn't the only absentee — Pedri and Frenkie de Jong also spent time on the sidelines— and nor was he the sole reason for the team's success before his injury. He did, however, make Barca a better side when he was in it.
It came as a surprise, then, when he left for PSG. The Blaugrana, Xavi admitted, would have liked to hold on to the French winger, but PSG met his release clause, and Dembele swiftly accepted the move back to his homeland.
Advertisementpsg.frThe promise of his arrival
Despite his upturn in form, Dembele probably needed a change of scenery. It was, in theory, a perfect homecoming for a star who still required a fresh start — and a kind run of fitness — to show why he was considered an elite talent in his youth.
It has been assumed for some time that Dembele is a world-class player who just needed the right home to become one of the best wingers in the world. The raw traits — speed, dribbling ability, a penchant for striking the ball with both feet — are tantalizing, and they just needed to be unlocked and applied.
He showed enough potential as a teenager at both Rennes and Dortmund to suggest that they could. In the 2016-17 season, Dembele starred in Germany. Although there were questions about his off-field antics — the winger supposedly trashed the flat he was renting from Jurgen Klopp — he proved immensely influential for Thomas Tuchel's side.
Tuche praised the player's performance and handed the teenager consistent minutes from the off. By the spring, he was a key contributor, scoring the first goal in the DFB-Pokal final, making the Bundesliga Team of the Season, and winning the league's Rookie of the Season award.
All that convinced Barca to fork out an initial €105m (£90m/$116m) to sign him that summer as they looked for their Neymar replacement. And though his time in Catalunya was mixed at best, the performances of the last 18 months suggested that Dembele could be well on his way to finally delivering on the promise that he showed as a 19-year-old.
That he grew up just over an hour's drive from Paris made the narrative all-the-more appetising. This was supposed to be the perfect spot for a new start.
Getty ImagesMixed statistics
But it hasn't gone to plan so far. Dembele, fundamentally, is doing a lot of missing. The winger hasn't scored for club or country this season, while he has only assisted twice — and both came in relatively comfortable Ligue 1 wins.
Only six of his 23 shots have been on target, and his xG total is just over two (although a disallowed goal has skewed the numbers slightly). This is not a striker misfiring inside the box, missing chances with the goal gaping, but he is still a player going through a slump in when he gets inside the penalty area.
A look further back suggests that 2023 has been a year to forget. Before his injury — sustained in late January — Dembele had tallied 17 direct goal contributions in all competitions for club and country, and enjoyed an encouraging World Cup for France despite being substituted before half-time in the final. In the nine games after returning from his hamstring issue, however, he tallied just two goal contributions — both of which were assists.
Dembele could, ideally, do with some more help from the players around him. PSG, as a whole, are missing some easy chances this season. Mbappe is slightly off kilter, and should be scoring more than he is. Fellow summer signings Goncalo Ramos and Randal Kolo Muani, meanwhile, have fluffed their lines on numerous occasions. That Dembele has 2.9 expected assists (xA) suggests that he has been a victim of their wayward finishing.
Ironically, everything else is going well. The winger's pass completion percentage is the highest it has been since 2021, and his dribbling skills are as tidy as ever, as he is completing roughly the same percentage of take-ons as he did last season. Throw in the fact that PSG score nearly two more goals per 90 minutes when Dembele is on the pitch, and this is still a player who is a net positive for his side.
PSG, on the whole, are in a good place. Still, the stats indicate a wider problem: Dembele, as an individual, simply isn't showing up when he really needs to. At some point, that will cost his team in a big spot.
GettyWhy it's going wrong
A change of scenery can be an admittedly dangerous thing, and it's hurt Dembele before. In his final season at Dortmund, Dembele scored 10 goals and assisted 21 in all competitions. Those numbers took a massive hit a year later in his first Spanish campaign, as he scored just five and assisted eight in an injury-interrupted season.
It must be said, though, that at Barca he walked into an unstable team. Luis Enrique had just left, and there were structural problems at the club. Although they were expected to fight for the league title, they struggled to adapt to a post-Neymar world. Some of their signings in response — Antoine Griezmann, Philippe Coutinho and Malcolm — would prove to be abysmal wastes of money. Dembele can easily fall into that category, too.
This PSG team, though, seems a bit more defined. Although they have a new manager (ironically Luis Enrique), and brought in a dozen new players this summer, the big egos have been slashed from the squad, while Mbappe seems reasonably content to be lining up at Parc des Princes despite his own summer dramas. Theoretically, at least, this should be a bit easier for Dembele to adapt to.
But Luis Enrique hasn't exactly helped the winger in his tendency to rotate and experiment. Dembele started the season playing on the right of a more traditional front three, and was routinely asked to cut inside onto his preferred left foot so as to link-up with a recognised striker, as well as surging runners from midfield.
Since then, though, he has been thrown into a number of different systems. Most recently, Luis Enrique has deployed Dembele on the right side of an attacking 4-2-4, charging the winger with staying high when the Parisians defend, and asking him to drop deep, receive the ball, and trigger attacks when his side looks to break. It's a system that doesn't suit him.
There is, admittedly, something to be said for personal accountability here, too. Luis Enrique's priority is not to keep Dembele happy, but get results out of his side. Doing both is merely a bonus. And for a PSG side that is currently second in Ligue 1 and top of their Champions League group, he has little reason to change things.