Yaya Sanogo is a ‘wise man’ and ‘a leader’, according to his former coaches, and the striker just needs some luck with injuries.

Sanogo left Arsenal on a free transfer to Toulouse this summer.

He scored his first league goal of the season against FC Troyes in his new club’s final match in January.

Although that might not sound particularly impressive, it means he has three goals and one assist in 542 minutes this season. That’s a goal contribution every 136 minutes on average, not bad at all.

In Saturday’s edition of Le Parisian, former France u20 coach Pierre Mankowski sung the striker’s praises. He said: “[Sanogo] is a wise man. He was a leader. When I had a message to pass on to the team, I passed it through him.”

As for why Sanogo hasn’t been able to take advantage of that intelligence and leadership so far, Bernard Casoni thinks he knows the answer. Casoni managed the Frenchman during his team at Auxerre, and says the 25-year-old’s problems are all related to fitness.

“His problem is that he has never been able to play regularly,” explained Casoni. “He had a weakness somewhere. But he was always very motivated and showed a lot of courage to return. He put in a lot of work.”

Those injury issues certainly affected the centre-forward during his time with Arsenal.

Sanogo spent four years with the Gunners, and only made 20 appearances during that time. Nearly any striker in the world would struggle if he’s not even averaging 10 league games a year.

Now, at last, Sanogo seems to be fit and playing again.

Hopefully he can keep that going for as long as possible and get into a rhythm. I’m sure we’ll see the best of him if he does.