Since the 17-year-old Aleksandr Kokorin scored in his debut for Dinamo Moscow in 2008, the young striker has often been linked with moves to the big clubs around Europe. Unlike his friend from Dinamo’s academy Fedor Smolov, Kokorin quickly developed into a vital part of the Blue-White’s team, and in 2012 he played two matches during the Euro tournament, where Russia crashed out after the group stage.
Fast forward three years, and Kokorin is still playing with the D that is Dinamo’s logo on his chest, and he has just received a two match ban for head butting an opponent during the away match against Terek Grozny. For Russian football followers it is clear that the development of the now 24-year-old striker has stalled, and that he is far from the level we all expected him to reach when we saw his impressive showings as a youngster.
Last season saw Kokorin score a hattrick in the opening round as Dinamo won 7-3 at home against Rostov, but from there his scoring run dried out and he only went to score a total of eight league goals. One of Kokorin’s big weaknesses is his lack of goals; he is yet to score more than ten goals in the Russian Premier League in a season, and it is slowly becoming clearer and clearer that Kokorin will never be able to play as the front striker for a winning team. This has caused Kokorin to often be placed on the left wing for both Dinamo and Russia, with a more classic striker playing in the middle. For Dinamo this was often Kevin Kuranyi while Zenit’s Aleksandr Kerzhakov or Artem Dzyuba were prefered as the main striker for the national team. From the left wing Kokorin gets the freedom to roam into the field, as the more stationary striker creates him some space that he can fill up.
Another problem for Kokorin is his lack of solid performances on the biggest stage. Kokorin was expected to get his international break through during the World Cup in Brazil, but instead he was almost invisible as he only scored one goal and missed a couple of big chances. To make things worse Kokorin didn’t play as big a role as you would expect from a player like him during Dinamo Moscow’s otherwise impressive Europa League run last season as these statistics from WhoScored shows.
The versitality that allows Kokorin to be placed on the wing, or as a second forward, is however also one of his strengths. Kokorin is in many ways a complete player, as he is good both on the ground and in the air. He can furthermore create chances not only for himself but also for his teammates, and he is smart enough to find weak spots and space in his opponents defence, something that is important with the level of freedom he is often given.
With the exception of the single month the technically gifted Kokorin played for Anzhi Makhachkala in the summer of 2013, Kokorin has been loyal to Dinamo, and for a while it looked like he had passed his chance to play for one of Europe’s biggest clubs. Then, out of nowhere, emerged rumours of him going to England where he was linked with Tottenham, Arsenal and Manchester United.
Last week the Russian news agency TASS reported that Kokorin was in talks with both Spurs and United. Their source was an insider in Dinamo, who confirmed that the club had received offers from all over Europe and that it was ready to let Kokorin leave the club for anyone but Zenit.
Dinamo are currently in a difficult situation, as they were kicked out of the Europa League for breaching UEFA’s Financial Fair Play regulations. This has caused an exodus of the club’s most talented players as Mathieu Valbuena and Balazs Dzsudzsak have already left the club this summer, while Christopher Samba, Douglas, William Vanqueur and Alexander Buttner are also actively looking for new clubs. Dinamo’s problems are caused by a massive overspending on the transfer market, which led the board to sack the now former sports director Guram Adzhoyev as well as head coach Stanislav Cherchesov only a few weeks before the season kicked off.
Just like when Dinamo bought six players, including Kokorin, from Anzhi’s firesale in 2013 it looks like European clubs can now exploit Dinamo’s current crisis, and after Valbuena and Dzsudzsak’s departures Kokorin has turned into one of the hottest prospects. Zenit were for a long time interested according to the rumours, but Dinamo wasn’t ready to lose their star to a competing Russian club.
Christophe Hutteau together with Mathieu Valbuena.
The statement that made the Kokorin story go viral came from the agent Christophe Hutteau, who among others represents Kokorin’s former teammate Valbuena, as he told TASS that he was working on sending Kokorin to England.
“At the moment I am working on the Kokorin transfer.” Hutteau said, “There is every reason to believe that he will end up at either Manchester United or Tottenham.”
Hutteau’s statement came only a few days after Kokorin’s agent and stepfather Kirill Loginov made it clear that the striker wasn’t going to leave Dinamo for Zenit or anyone else and that all the media speculation was based on false rumours. After Hutteau’s statement hit the news Sovetsky Sport interviewed Loginov about the rumours, and he made it clear that the French agent was nothing more than an imposter trying to make easy money. Later that day Hutteau told the same media that he had never claimed to be Kokorin’s agent.
Two days ago Loginov then told Sports.ru that he had never even heard of the interest from Arsenal, after Gazeta.ru had written that the deal was close to being finalized: “I have not heard anything about this. I don’t know anything about the interest from Arsenal.”
A player like Kokorin will always get attention, especially from Russia where his citizenship grants him an advantage because of the strict foreigner rules, but in this case the rumours seem like pure speculation. Kokorin could have asked Hutteau to help him facilitate a move in order to use his connections, but with only a few days left of the transfer window it looks unlikely to happen. It is however time for Kokorin to leave Dinamo if he wants to keep the hope of reaching his full potential alive, and with his contract expiring next summer Dinamo could be forced to sell now if they want to earn money on their star.
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