‘Only Bakayoko could do something like that’: Chelsea loanee forgets what his shirt number is at AS Monaco

In the 81st minute of AS Monaco’s 3-0 win over Amiens SC, Chelsea loanee Tiémoué Bakayoko looked to the sideline and saw the substitution board go up. He saw the number 22 in green, and he saw the number 14 in red. “Hey, that’s my number!” he thought to himself, and started walking towards the bench.

Except that’s not his number. He is not No.14. Not at Monaco. At Monaco, this season, he wears the No.6. Oops.

It took a finger-wagging fourth official and a reminder from the Monaco bench for him to remember that, leading to these hilarious scenes of Bakayoko applauding the supporters before administering a well-deserved facepalm.

He’s worn the No.14 at Chelsea, at AC Milan, at Stade Rennais, and at Monaco the first time around. But not this season! This season, when he arrived on loan in the summer, the No.14 already belonged to Keita Baldé, who incidentally took it after Bakayoko vacated it by joining Chelsea in 2017. So Bakayoko took a classic midfield number that was vacant. Over three months later, he’s yet to internalize that development.

Or, as teammate and Twitter-troll Cesc Fàbregas put it, “only Bakayoko could do something like that”. Cesc may be laughing, and this may be fairly amusing, but this is also not necessarily a good look for a player often labeled inattentive and careless.

On the plus side, Bakayoko has been playing regularly since arriving from Chelsea at the end of August, missing time only due to a sprained ankle last month. Monaco have a £40m option to turn his loan into a transfer at the end of the season, though they probably will have to improve on their current mid-table position to be able to comfortably afford that.