Michael Olise: The Crystal Palace and Premier League Swashbuckler

A breakthrough campaign under Reading Football Club in the English Championship that racked 44 appearances and yielded seven goals, 12 assists, an EFL Young Player of the Season laurel, and being named in the PFA’s Championship Team of the Year, is what has helped propel Michael Olise into an esteemed class of brilliant young talents currently plying their trade in England.

His impressive performance for the Royals in the 2020-21 season in particular caught the eyes of all those who watched him and landed the former Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City youth an interest from a handful of Premier League coaches like Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta, and particularly former Crystal Palace’s coach Patrick Vieira who ended up not hesitating at activating an £8 million clause in the youngster’s Reading contract and whisking him away with a five-year contract to the south London side.

Olise was a real wonder for Reading during his 2020/21 season at the Madejski Stadium— 44 games, 7 goals with 12 assists, and it is no surprise to see him now doing business in the top flight. The youngster’s rise hasn’t wavered whenever he gets to make an appearance in the Eagles team, in fact the first half of the 2022/23 Premier League witnessed Olise perform a handful of daring adventurous bravados in very flamboyant manners to the amazement of Selhurst Park faithfuls and followers of the beautiful game of football in England’s topmost tier football league.

But looking back at all these– you’d like to think upon arriving at Selhurst Park, it would be cast in stone— a regular starting berth and in a definite wing right? Well I’d have liked to think that too if it was done in a different way, and I hate to point fingers here.

Eagles coach Patrick Vieira was yet to hand Olise a consistent run of full 90 minutes playing time and in a definite position. As we all know, a steady run of games is what every footballer craves to help them build a run of good form and also rake in those high stats tally.

Perhaps it was about avoiding disruption to his preferred tactical modulation, or how he prefers to start his games, or maybe, just maybe an avoidance of some other tactical risks, but I can particularly say it was for reasons best known to the former gaffer himself, I’m not privy to the thoughts that were ongoing in his head about Olise, or conversations that underwent with him and his coaching team.

But Olise’s play is somewhat of one that stirs particular interest due to his style which is mainly about tipping the edge for his team with his dashing pace whenever the onus is on them— somewhat of a Looney Tunes LoadRunner. But who said the 20 year old sprints star’s swift style couldn’t be applicable from kick off knowing for a fact that when most mid table teams in the premier league face each other they prefer to start the game guns blazing, rather than dilly-dally till midway into the second half before stepping on the pedal.

The young left footed midfielder is one quite adept at penetrating opponent’s halves when deployed on the right wing, especially when it comes to his high take-ons, and then cutting inside onto his stronger foot— play styles which afforded him the seven goals and twelve assists and the accolade of one of Reading’s standout performers in the 2020/21 season.

That being the case, during the first half of this season(2022/23) in the Premier League, Vieira as gaffer at Crystal Palace opted to limit Olise to only eight match starts and five substitute appearances, and then juggle him between a central attacking midfield position against his more impactful right midfield position that he thrives better in, thus limiting the young and exciting star to just three shots on target, from a total eight shots at goal, and then scoring just a lone goal and creating two assists.

Nonetheless, Michael still raked in some other decent figures during the bare and sufficient opportunity afforded him then. The youngster had totaled 828 minutes—64 minutes per game, attempting 350 passes, with 279 of those passes completed, averaging 27 passes per match with a pass completion rate of 80%. He’s a very nimble player to say the least. He had 6 blocks, 24 attempted tackles, 16 of those tackles being successful, 45 recoveries, 53 duels won, 18 successful 50/50s and a successful tackles rate of 70% with just a yellow card and zero red cards plus an overall player rating of 6.50.

The thing with Michael here is that he’s quite a team player. His case isn’t one of scoring five, six goals each month. He clearly has an abundance of talent that I can bet you will continue to excite supporters. Currently what’s important is that he is playing well and frequently, he is enjoying his football and he is a really important player for the Palace team.

A friend that’s a football pundit asked me a while ago “how far do you think Michael can go?” and I responded both as publicist and as one unbiasedly abreast with the game of football, that he (Michael) can go how far he wants, even to a top 5 club, It’s just for him to muster the required mental strength— and most naysayers won’t applaud me for saying this.

Former Arsenal boss and now FIFA’s Chief of Global Football Development earlier this season via a video that surfaced online gave a small but valuable piece of advice to Olise similar to the type that helped Thierry Henry, telling the youngster in French, “Faut marquer plus de buts.”which translates to “need to score more goals.”

Olise is a truly marvelous talent that is a delight to watch anytime on any occasion and he’s absolutely got the potential to play at Champions League level one day. If we were to set a transfer target according to on-field factors like his pre-Premier League ability and potential, Crystal Palace would be basking in several euphoria that they’ve bagged a real deal. The lad can get up tomorrow and say to himself “I want to play for an even bigger club’, I want to play Champions League football” because I know he can do it.

Is he prepared to push himself on again and towards this? Definitely, I know he is.

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Michael Olise… The English Premier League and Crystal Palace FC Swashbuckler