Como midfielder Jayden Osei Addai enters the final days of pre-season with his club's ambitions pulling in several directions at once — a friendly draw and defeat against Liverpool bookending a transfer window in which Fàbregas's side have tabled an offer for Fiorentina striker Moise Kean and opened talks over Samuele Ricci from Milan. For a 20-year-old trying to establish himself in the first-team picture, the noise around him matters as much as anything he does with the ball.
The so-what is this: Como finished fourth in Serie A last season with 71 points from 38 matches, conceding just 29 goals across a campaign that demanded defensive solidity and tactical cohesion from every position. That is the standard Osei Addai must meet. The club is not rebuilding — it is reinforcing, and the players already in the squad are being evaluated against a European-qualification benchmark, not a development one.
His numbers from last season reflect a player still finding his footing at that level. Three goals in 12 appearances, an average rating of 6.90, and an AI overall score of 67 out of a projected ceiling of 78 — the gap between those two figures is the most instructive thing about where he stands. The potential is documented. The question is pace of conversion.
The Liverpool friendlies offered a useful stress test. Como drew one match and lost the other against Arne Slot's side, with Cody Gakpo and a goal from Jacquet settling the second fixture at Anfield. Osei Addai's specific contributions in those matches are not on record here, but the broader point stands: Fàbregas used the pre-season to examine his squad against elite opposition, and the results — competitive without being dominant — suggest the coach knows exactly where the margins are.
The pursuit of Kean and Ricci tells a parallel story. If both arrive, the midfield and attacking lines become more crowded, which means Osei Addai's path to regular minutes narrows unless he can demonstrate something the new arrivals cannot provide — energy, pressing intensity, the willingness to do unglamorous work in transition. At 20, with a potential ceiling the data rates at 78, he has the profile of a player who can grow into those demands. Whether Fàbregas gives him the minutes to do so in a squad being actively upgraded is the question that will define his 2026-27 season.
Como's recruitment activity signals confidence, not panic. A club that holds fourth place and is still chasing Kean from Fiorentina is operating from a position of strength. For Osei Addai, that context cuts both ways — he is part of something genuinely competitive, but competition for his position is about to intensify. His three goals last season are a foundation, not a guarantee.