Looking Closer: Munas Dabbur

Munas Dabbur you may say in a very confused manner? Yes, We’ve never heard of him before either.

Today The Sentinel have reported that we have been linked with the current Grasshopper no. 9 so we thought we would dig a little deeper and take a closer look at the apparent Stoke target.

Born in Nazareth, Israel in 1992 he started his youth career with his boyhood side Macabi Nazareth spending 7 years there from the age of 11-18 before moving to Macabi Tel Aviv where he spent a year on a youth contract. However, Dabbur was to move back to Nazareth to start his professional career. He spent a year back in his hometown but could only muster up 5 appearance in which he failed to score in any of them.

You may think after such an uneventful introduction to professional football he would fade in to obscurity and never be mentioned again. Quite the opposite. Macabi Tel Aviv had obviously seen enough talent in him from his yearlong youth contract to offer him a 3 year deal. His first season in Tel Aviv was a revelation, Dabbur made 26 appearances in which he managed to score on 8 occasions. The following season(2012/13)) the young Israeli made another 26 appearances as he netted 10 times, subsequently Tel Aviv went on to win there first league title in 10 years. Not a bad return from a man who at this point was only 20 years old.

Fast forward 6 months and Dabbur was starting to catch the eye. Grasshopper from Switzerland knocked on the door with an offer of 425,000 euro. The young mans debut was eventful to say the least, despite starting on the bench for the Swiss outfit, he made it on to the pitch for the second half where he made a huge impact scoring twice and registering an assist. In his first season he managed a total of 9 goals and 5 assists which is a healthy return on the money that was paid for him. His second season was no different, he scored 18 goals in league and cup competitions and provided 8 assists to benefit the team.

Strongly linked with a move Palermo in the summer of 2015 to replace Paulo Dybala who has since gone onto be the driving force in front of Paul Pogba at Juventus. He was offered a new improved contract which he signed with no hesitation and boy did he warrant the new contract. In his opening 8 games in the 2015/2016 season he scored 6 and assisted 8 times.

The stats certainly show this young Israeli as a composed finisher and that he has a great eye when it comes to opening the opposition’s backline up.

Summary: Depending on the figure of the transfer, he would certainly be someone I would look at. Yes, he has been a great talisman in Switzerland but could he bring that form over to England? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Written by James Baddley

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