In the fourth round of matches in the Liga MX Apertura 2017, Atlas lost 1-0 against Club America at home. The game was not all Atlas lost on that day as Clifford Aboagye suffered an injury that will sideline him for four months.
The Ghanaian midfielder has been looking impressive in that midfield with Atlas and the loss was monumental for Los Zorros. This Thursday, Aug. 31 Atlas announced their replacement in midfield for Aboagye, Ravel Morrison. On that same day, Atlas’ vice president Alberto de la Torre met with the press and talked about the motives of the transfer among other things.
The vice president did say “we were looking for a player with similar qualities to Clifford and found a young player who is looking to turn things around”. While the move is surprising, exciting and ambitious Ravel Morrison is not the same type of player as Clifford Aboagye.
The Englishman has been known to be purely an attacking type of player that excels at being creative as well. Morrison has never been known to have outstanding defensive capabilities and this could be where the scouting department failed when looking at Aboagye’s replacement.
Clifford Abogye had been having a magnificent season with Atlas playing a sort of Makelele role in Los Rojinegros’ midfield. While the Ghanaian player does have decent offensive capabilities that are far outmatched by Morrison, Aboagye had been outstanding covering ground and recovering the ball for Jose Guadalupe Cruz in the only four games he played this tournament.
The 22-year-old was averaging 9.4 kilometers covered per every match, which is spectacular considering the current league leader in the department, Aldo Arellano is averaging 11.6 per game. The young African midfielder also had recovered the ball 61 times in those first four games and it is highly unlikely that Morrison will do the same job in terms of ball recovery. Aboagye had also been one of the best passers in the Liga MX with an excellent 85.7-percent pass accuracy. Morrison can certainly be on par or even surpass this pass accuracy but will have to be in top level throughout the season.
Aboagye was an engine out on the field that fueled Atlas throughout the first four games, Ravel Morrison is an extremely talented player but it is very unclear if he will show that type of drive that Aboagye had this season. The acquisition of the Englishman to the Guadalajara-based team is a very enticing and exciting one but the ideal replacement for Clifford Aboagye may not have been found with this move.
