Kolo Muani: a Juve starter every week, still no goal

Randal Kolo Muani is the eighth most expensive player on our list: 27 credits, forward (A, attaccante), 27 years old, French. Few starters are as secure as he is in this early-season Juventus: five Serie A appearances, all five as a starter, 449 minutes played. The goal, however, has not come yet. That is the point of this piece: whoever paid for him at the auction bought minutes and continuity, and so far that is what they got, not goals.

He did not play in Serie A last season, so there is no league-against-league comparison. In 2025-26 he made 45 appearances across all official competitions, 29 as a starter, 2,449 minutes, 7 goals and 5 assists, between Tottenham and Paris Saint-Germain. The Premier League with Tottenham was the bulk of it: 30 appearances, 1,682 minutes, just one goal and one assist. His goals came elsewhere: 4 in the Champions League in 449 minutes and 2 at the Club World Cup with PSG. API-Football average rating over the whole year: 6.68.

The per-90 comparison therefore sets the 2,449 minutes of all 2025-26 competitions against the 449 minutes of Serie A 2026-27: these are different contexts and the numbers must be read with that caution. Shots rise from 1.14 to 1.40 per 90 minutes, shots on target from 0.48 to 0.60: the chances are there, though that means 7 shots and 3 on target in five games. Goals drop from 0.26 to zero. Key passes halve, from 1.25 to 0.60, while passes rise from 16.87 to 20.24: he is more involved in the build-up but creates less. Fouls suffered grow from 0.88 to 1.60 per 90 minutes. The API-Football average rating falls from 6.68 to 6.26.

The FantaTB fantasy ratings, which we calculate ourselves and are not a newspaper's marks, tell of a heavy start and a clear recovery. The sequence is 4.5 on matchday one, then 6, 5, 6.5 and 7 on matchday five. His average rating is 5.60 and his fantasy average 5.80, from one assist and no goals in five rated appearances. Among the forwards on our list that fantasy average sits in the 30th percentile, while his price is in the 97th and his starting likelihood in the 100th: no forward has a higher estimated starting chance than his 90%. The gap between what he costs and what he has delivered is all right there.

Juventus are seventh with 10 points from five matchdays: three wins, one draw and one defeat, 8 goals scored and 4 conceded, a clean sheet in three games out of five. They keep the ball, 55.4% average possession, and shoot 17.4 times a game, 5.8 on target. The team's xG is 1.52 per game, calculated on 4 of the 5 matches: a volume a starting centre-forward should turn into something. Next up is Cagliari-Juventus on matchday six, away at the Unipol Domus, on Sunday 11 October. Cagliari are fourth with 12 points, form WLWWW, concede 0.40 goals a game and have kept three clean sheets in five. They do, however, allow opponents 1.90 xG per game, over 4 matches with statistics: they give up a lot and have conceded little so far.

Our data show no injuries or suspensions. For matchday six his estimated starting chance is 90%: he has started the last three matchdays out of three and appears in the probable line-up at 94%. Whoever has him in their squad has no reason to drop him: he always plays, his FantaTB fantasy ratings have gone up in each of the last two matchdays and his shot volume is up on last year. The goal is still missing, and against a defence conceding 0.40 goals a game it is not a given that it arrives. From a 27-credit forward you expect more than 0.20 goals plus assists per 90 minutes. The trend of the last few matchdays, though, is heading the right way.