Le Mini Chelsea: SCOUT NOTES, August 21st
Le Mini Chelsea: SCOUT NOTES, August 21st
The free newsletter for scouting aficionados — and transfer addicts.
Football, football, football has replaced transfers, transfers, transfers. Almost all the European leagues are back in action now, barring the Bundesliga, and we’ve got a delectable selection of games to watch almost every day.
It’s good that it’s back. As much as we enjoy the transfers, there’s only so much of the transfers we can take — especially in the non-stop, hyperactive world of modern-day journalism. The updates from he who shall not be named are as incessant as they are pointless, and we’ve had e-bloody-nough of it.
Anyway… everyone say welcome to Jake! A proper SCOUTED original has joined the team on a full-time basis and his expertise in many areas will help take what we do to the next level. We’re very excited, and you should be excited. This promises to be our biggest season yet.
To keep making signings like Jake and make SCOUTED sustainable, where a handful of us can live relatively comfortably off what we do, we need more of you to subscribe. Not much more, only a couple of hundred or so. You’ll get the best youth football journalism on the internet in return. G’wan. Join us.
Juventus’ Thiago Motta era began with a comfortable 3-0 victory over newcomers Como on Monday.
A number of Next Gen graduates we would’ve expected to play in this game 6-12 months ago have left the club — Huijsen, Soule, Barrenechea, and Iling-Junior — but Motta had a little trick up his sleeve.
That trick was leaving marquee signing Douglas Luiz on the bench, moving Kenan Yıldız to play as a number 10 (after being handed that squad number by the club hierarchy earlier in the week), and plugging Samuel Mbangula into place on the left wing.
After 23 minutes, the Belgian had Juventus fans, Stevie, and Italian commentator Luca Momblano in MBANGULANDIA after he cut inside on his right and curled a lovely shot into the far corner.
He followed that up with a late assist for Andrea Cambiaso to cap off a dream debut.
Mbangula is a slick wide player. He’s not explosively quick, but he’s a neat dribbler between the lines and did a great job keeping things tidy in this game without forcing anything or trying to do too much. But he wasn’t deferential either, picking the right moments to impact the game, while also working to feed to ball to Yıldız or revert play back into defence and midfield as required.
Importantly, Motta has shown that he will give players opportunities when they merit them. Now, all of a sudden, it looks like the young Belgian, who joined Juve from Anderlecht in 2020, will remain as a permanent member of the first-team for the upcoming season.
That comes alongside a few other surprises, such as Vasilije Adžić, Jonas Rouhi, and Nicolò Savona (who made his first-team debut in this match), in nailing down a first-team place in Motta’s new-look Juve.
Big things are happening in Turin, and so much of it revolves around the fruits of their productive academy. Get used to that.
Sunderland games on YouTube!
This is a public service announcement: Sunderland are uploading the full-nineties of their league games to YouTube every week!
It’s fantastic. In a time when football is becoming more and more difficult to watch — for a range of reasons, be it ever-increasing financial cost or broadcasters simply not picking up the rights — then a club offering something as simple as this is a huge win for everyone.
Sunderland are a proper SCOUTED team as well. They’re one of the youngest in the entire EFL, and they have started the new seasons pretty well too. We encourage you to watch them.
Three Interesting Transfer Things
A hat-trick of intriguing happenings, organised into a trio of quickfire sections.
→ Strasbourg, le mini Chelsea
We won’t bang on about Chelsea – everyone has their own opinion on what’s going on there – but we will highlight what the other BlueCo-owned club is doing this summer. Basically, Strasbourg are being mini Chelsea.
They’ve secured the signings of Sékou Mara, Félix Lemaréchal and Rayane Messi in the past week alone, with Sebastian Nanasi and Mahamadou Sarr on the brink of being confirmed as well. Those deals will take their U-23 transfer tally up to eight for the season — and it would be a surprise if it stops there.
On paper, these are pretty exciting signings. I like Mara since before he moved to Southampton; Lemaréchal stood out in Belgium; Messi (not that one) was a favourite at this summer’s UEFA U-17 EURO (see below), and the likes of Nanasi and Sarr are just good, solid prospects.
It’s a much more modest Chelsea. The signings average at around €5 million each, which shouldn’t be balked at in Ligue 1’s current financial hellscape, but they’re not the big-money deals their big sister is signing off on the regular.
Liam Rosenior, the new head coach who speaks very little French, now has the extremely difficult task of trying to form this extremely young squad into a competitive Ligue 1 side.
It needs to be noted that Strasbourg fans, particularly its ultra sect, aren’t on board with their new BlueCo ownership. The ultras regularly demonstrate against it and multi-club ownership at games. They don’t wan to be a mini Chelsea. They want to be a big Strasbourg.
→ Carlos Andrés Gómez to Stade Rennais
Staying in France, Stade Rennais are having a proper Stade Rennais of a transfer window. They’ve sold a batch of top academy talent — headlined by Désiré Doué’s €50 million move to league rivals Paris Saint-Germain — and used the bundles of cash to bring in young, lesser-known talent from all over.
One of them is Carlos Andrés Gómez, who they’ve signed for €10 million from Real Salt Lake. He’s been outstanding in MLS this year, putting together a great stint of form that alerted me to him initially and registering some league-leading numbers in general.
Gómez is particularly interesting because he’s a right-footer that plays on the right side. He’s not a winger that ‘inverts’ onto his strong foot, he’s a wide forward that strides on straight lines into space and attacks the box, à la Theo Walcott, with those driven crosses and finishes across goal.
Furthermore, it’s another good notch for MLS as a ‘stepping stone’ league, particularly for South Americans looking to bridge the ocean to Europe. Keep an eye on how he does to gauge how MLS’s best compares to a good top-five European league level.
→ Get them out there earlier!
This week has seen another flurry of EFL clubs securing loan deals for Premier League prospects a week after their league seasons begun. Jamie Donley has gone to Leyton Orient for the season, while Charlos Sagoe Jr. makes the temporary move to Shrewsbury.
Both featured in Spurs’ and Arsenal’s first team pre-seasons respectively, but should they have done when these loan deals were always the most likely outcome for them? In the case of Donley, was it worth him missing a couple of months at Orient for a couple of games under Ange Postecoglou? The answer has many different factors, obviously, but I’d suggest no, it wasn’t.
Now, I’m not as clued up on the inner-workings of these deals as I need to be to make such a suggestion, but I’d love to see these type of ‘fringe’ youngsters getting out on their loans earlier. Go and settle in at the club you’ll be playing at for the season; get used to the way the team plays; get to know your new team-mates and surroundings.
In case you missed it…
This is where we link to all the stuff that you may have missed on SCOUTED Notebook over the past week or so. Tuck in!
The Starboy Sauce, by Jake Entwistle
We’re elated that Jake has joined the team on a full-time basis, and his first Notebook offering was to detail how Bukayo Saka can attain superstardom this season in a new Monday Night SCOUTED series. Eyes peeled.
The Shortlist: Vasilije Adžić, by SCOUTED
‘The Montenegrin De Bruyne’ is one to watch at Juventus this season. Llew Davies, our Scouting Editor, gives us the lowdown on an unknow prospect that has all the potential to become a top-level top-league performer.
Yankuba Minteh: Newcastle’s loss, Brighton’s gain, by Ronan Manning
This is pertinent because Yankuba Minteh is about to embark on a breakout campaign in Brighton, we think. He showed what he can do in the Premier League opener and there’s loads more where that came from.
That was a short and sharp SCOUT NOTES. There’ll be more girth in future. If you liked it, like it. Press the button below. That’s the easiest way to support what we do. It’s that easy. And leave a comment as well. Drive the discussion.
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