Baggies bag a bargain: SCOUT NOTES, June 28th
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Transfers, transfers, and more transfers. Like it or loathe it, that’ll be the agenda of every single SCOUT NOTES from now until the club football season kicks off again in just over a month.
Things are definitely getting busier. The looming financial year cut-off has forced through some lesser-spotted, PSR-easing trade deals that were, more or less, a thing of Football Manager fantasy up until this summer.
Away from the murky curiosities of those deals, we’re starting to see actual stuff happen. Rumours are coming thick and fast, the trickle of completed deals has turned into a stream, and the flood will likely come once EURO 2024 approaches its finale and clubs return for their pre-seasons.
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Baggies bag a (potential) bargain
Ousmane Diakité has suffered an unimaginable amount at just 23 years old.
His knee exploded 800 minutes into his first senior season — rupturing pretty much everything you can rupture — and it took almost two full years to get back on the pitch. Once he did, it took 16 games for his knee to go again, this time sidelining him 14 months.
Before that, Diakité had all the makings of a top-level midfielder. His loan at Altach would likely have preceded a breakthrough into the Red Bull Salzburg first team, where he had the profile to impress and earn a big-money move to a top-five league like many before. From there, anything was possible.
Five years on, he’s just joined West Bromwich Albion in the Championship. The transfer came out of nowhere; it properly took us by surprise when it popped up on our Twitter timeline. It was a genuine eyebrow-raiser.
Diakité is the type of midfielder that clubs love. Massive, mobile, a very active ball-winner in front of the defence, and very capable of slipping pressure with little bits of improvisation and skill, before moving play on with long-legged carries or simple-but-quick passes. That’s the type of midfielder clubs would’ve paid a lot of money for were it not for the debilitating injuries.
“Ousmane is a young, talented midfielder with the potential to continue his growth as a player in England. His personality on the ball will help us transition from defence to attack. He has experience abroad in Austria’s top league and has good physical attributes which will help him to adapt to the high demands of the Championship.”
We would post some clips of him at St. Gallen that would illustrate his style and skillset perfectly, but we can’t find in our digital maze of scouting folders.
Everything about this transfer hinges on Diakité’s health. If he is of the physical level — in terms of intensity, not just durability — then he has the potential to be a big win for West Brom. But that’s a big if. In fact, he’s only joined West Brom in the Championship because of that big if. The initial two-year contract they’ve given him is an acceptance of that big if.
Extremely Bayer Leverkusen, part two
A couple of SCOUT NOTES issues ago, we highlighted their €15 million signing of Jeanuël Belocian as an Extremely Bayer Leverkusen transfer. Well, they’ve only gone and done another Extremely Bayer Leverkusen transfer.
This time it’s Andrea Natali, a 2008-born Italian defender that they’ve had to battle with many more elite European clubs to signing from Barcelona’s La Masia academy.
If you’re a proper SCOUTED head, you’ll know Natali from our UEFA U-17 EURO coverage. We included him in our Team of the Tournament for his performances at the heart of an Italian defence that won the whole thing.
Some of you will probably know of his father, Cesare, too, who played over 300 games in Serie A for the likes of Atalanta, Bologna, Udinese, Fiorentina, and Sassuolo. Llew didn’t know that until writing this, hence the above.
Anyway, this is Extremely Bayer Leverkusen. They’re one of the premier destinations for the best emerging talent, all because of their strong track record in integrating, developing, and selling. Their recent successes under Xabi Alonso should supercharge that status until the buddle deflates.
Newport County x Cymru Premier
Dipping back into the EFL, Newport County are doing stuff that we (as stated last week, read Llew — this is Llew) very much approve of: signing young Welsh players from the domestic Cymru leagues.
The latest two are Joe Thomas (pictured above) and Kai Whitmore. The former earned a move to the Swansea City academy after bursting onto the scene for Cambrian & Clydach in the regionalised second tier, while the latter has been a standout for Penybont and most recently Haverfordwest County.
County pick these two up high off the success of Will Evans. He stepped up from the Cymru Premier to become a prolific League Two scorer and bit of an FA Cup hero last season. His story captivated the media for a while, and it’s opened the door for others like him to follow in his footsteps.
You know that we are big advocates, so transfers like this really hit home with us. Why? Because it gives good young talent a glimpse of a pathway to a professional career (millionaire-backed TNS are the only full-time club in the entire Welsh pyramid) and clubs the incentive to play those good young talents. There’s plenty more where Kai and Joe came from.
Three Interesting Transfer Things
A hat-trick of intriguing happenings, organised into a trio of quickfire sections.
Stefanos Tzimas gets a much-needed loan
Greek football isn’t as welcoming to young, home-grown players as it should be. You’ll be hard pressed to find a handful of U-21 players that start regularly in the top flight. Even the best, like Stefanos Tzimas, struggle to break into their side. That’s why he’s decided to go out on loan to the 2. Bundesliga.
The German club are delighted to get a prospect of his calibre, and Tzimas himself seems excited to get working with their newly-appointed head coach, Miroslav Klose, who knows a few things about scoring goals. A power centre-forward, Tzimas will be trying to emulate Christos Tzolis of this past season.
FC Midtjylland: an interesting club to follow
The Danish club are one of the icons of the trendy recruitment scene — the hipster’s choice for transfer window of the summer in years gone by — but they did lose their market mojo a little bit at the turn of the decade.
There are promising signs that they’re finding it again, though. Last season saw them sign players from all corners of the world, not least South Korea, and now they’re picking on South America again, getting in the highly-rated Denil Castillo from Shakhtar Donetsk.
Ousmane Diao — a 20-year-old Senegalese centre-back, signed off the back of a breakthrough season for sister club CD Mafra in the Portguese second division — is another example. We’re keen to see what more they do.
Keep your eye on the J.LEAGUE(s)
European clubs are focussing more and more on the burgeoning Japanese market to find value talent, and more and more Japanese prospects are making the jump to European clubs sooner in their careers than usual.
This summer should see another big batch of J.LEAGUErs make moves to good Euro leagues, further establishing that trend. Indeed, the first couple already have, headlined by Takumu Kawamura to Red Bull Salzburg.
Why is it happening? Basically, it’s because Japanese football is of an even higher standard than you think, particularly in terms of its physical demands, and its exports make impacts. Read this and this for more insight on that.
In case you missed it…
This is where we link to all the stuff that you may have missed on SCOUTED Notebook — and friends of SCOUTED — over the past week or so. Read on!
Swapsies: Inside the Aston Villa-Juventus mega deal, by Stephen Ganavas
This piece breaks down the permutations and pitfalls of the ‘maxi-swap’ transfer Villa and Juventus have formulated, swapping a key starter for prospects and cash. The tremendous Sam Tighe helped us on this one.
Jobe Bellingham: more Havertz than Jude, by Llew Davies
The Sunderland attacker is on the agenda at the usual Premier League clubs this summer, so there really is no better time to read our definitive profile of his Havertz-like qualities that are grounded in Bellinghamabilities.
Stairway to Madness, by Tom Curren
And finally, England are so boring they've broken a nation of brains. Tom, our editor-in-chief, sums up the mind-numbing sentiment on social media and elsewhere surrounding Southgate’s dull and dreary team.
If there’s typos in that, it’s because it’s 2am. We apologise. Anyway, we’ve promised to keep these transfer-filled SCOUT NOTES coming, and they’ve been coming. We’ll endeavour to keep this cadence up this summer.
The best way to keep stuff like this coming is: one, become a paid subscriber; and two, like this post. The more of you do both, the bigger and stronger SCOUTED will be come. You’ll make a little group of mates very happy.