The Posh Life: SCOUT NOTES, June 21st
The Posh Life: SCOUT NOTES, June 21st
The free newsletter for scouting aficionados.
As promised in the last issue, SCOUT NOTES — our free, weekly-ish newsletter — will be drenched in transfer sauce for the foreseeable.
And things are starting to sizzle now. It took a little while for the pan to heat up, but more and more deals are getting lobbed into it as we speak, and our Interesting Transfer spreadsheet is filling up at a rapid rate.
The best way to keep track of them all? Transfermarkt. If you have the time to refresh it every hour and jot down the deals you like most, use their Latest Transfers page. If you don’t have the time be a sicko like that, have a browse through their Transfer Overview pages for each league or age group.
That wasn’t a paid promotion — although we’d very much like it to be, please sponsor us Transfermarkt — but a friendly nod to a priceless service that, for now, happens to be free for all to utilise. We shouldn’t take that for granted.
But first, a call to action: subscribe to SCOUTED Notebook if you want to get the future of football direct to your inbox and keep independent journalism alive. You’ll get some fantastic stuff in return, like the Summer of SCOUTED.
Peterborough United are at it again
Anyone familiar with our game will know how much we like Peterborough United Football Club. They’re a smart club that build young teams filled with exciting talent, and play fun, competitive football under Darren Ferguson.
They recruit extremely smartly from levels beneath them, cherry-picking talent from the National League, League Two, and League One. They’ll dip into the Premier League as well, catching those that dropout of the academies or taking a couple on loan. To round it off, they trust in their own - academy graduate Harrison Burrows has played more minutes than any other for them this season.
See, we’ve been banging on about them for a while. They fell short of promotion back to the Championship by losing to eventual promotees Oxford United in the play-offs, but that won’t deter clubs from raiding them again.
Being a successful selling club means summerly replenishment of the first-team squad, and Posh have kicked off with two signings from non-league.
The first is Chris Conn-Clarke. This one had been in the works for a little while, quickly following on from his season at Altrincham which saw him bag 23 goals and 12 assists in 46 appearances.
Transfermarkt will tell you he did so from central midfield, but don’t believe everything you read on that tremendous website (please, give us money). He was the supporting attacker behind the striker mostly, buzzing between the lines. He played at the tip of the attack a couple of times, too.
This guy has a banger in him. Go on YouTube, type in ‘Chris Conn-Clarke’, and you’ll have fun for a good few minutes. He’s small and sharp and bustly with a fantastic right foot that can crack one in with any technique from any range and angle, as well as the shaprness to zip through tight spaces.
Conn-Clarke has the talent to be a game-changer in the EFL. It’ll be interesting to see how his small, stubby stature scales to League One but there’s no doubting his touch and technique in possession.
His journey to this point has been interesting. Born in Belfast and developed by Glentoran, he played academy football at Burnley and went on a couple of loans before Fleetwood Town picked him up permanently. He then fell into the laps of Altrincham a couple of years ago. The rest is very recent history.
The second is George Nevett. This is one that we’re excited about.
When we say ‘we’, read Llew. This is Llew writing these, and Llew is Welsh. You know who else is Welsh? Big George is. In fact, he’s a Welsh U-19 international, becoming one in the midst of his breakout season.
But seriously, this is a fun one. Nevett was starting games twice weekly as a 17/18-year-old in the National League last season, which is an outstanding feat given the nature of the division. He was coming up against direct teams and physical strikers that had been around the block and knew all the tricks. As debut senior seasons go, it won’t get any tougher than that, we promise.
Signed from Rochdale, Nevett has the makings of a good centre-back: he’s big, solid, a very willing defender, promising ball-player, and (here comes the big selling point) left-footed. He has ways to go before he can be a trusted starter in League One, but perhaps he can kick on quicker then we think. He definitely has the potential to, as his 2023/24 breakthrough testifes. Ronnie Edwards is the blueprint for his personal development.
Anyway, Peterborough United picking up the best lower league talent in another squad refresh is unfiltered transfer window ‘eritage — ‘err-ee-tej!
The Düsseldorf Redemption
Fortuna Düsseldorf almost gained promotion back to the Bundesliga last season.
In fact, they were 90 minutes away from doing so. All they needed to do was not lose by a three-goal margin at home to VfL Bochum. What did they do? They lost by a three-goal margin at home to VfL Bochum. That was the crash, the burn was their subsequent 5-6 defeat on penalties.
Nevertheless, it was a pretty good season for the Düsseldorfers. They scored a league-high 72 goals and would’ve gone up automatically had they kept a few more out. Their top scorer was Christos Tzolis — remember him?
He was the big hope of Greek football a few years back when Norwich City invested a chunky €11 million to get him from PAOK. Unsurprisingly, the leap in level was too big, he struggled to make an impact, went on loan to the Eredivisie, played a bit in the Championship, then came the loan to Fortuna.
Basically, he ripped it up. 22 goals plus six assists in 26.8 nineties played, ranking him as one of the most productive second-tier players around last season. Fortuna activated their option to buy at €3.5 million and look forward to flipping him on for a substantial profit. Easy work.
Another that enjoyed a similar rejuvenation was SCOUTED favourite Isák Bergmann Jóhannesson. He joined on loan from FC København, where he was shunned to the fringe of the first-team squad. His season in the 2. Bundesliga saw him play 2,123 minutes from a central midfield role. Fortuna activated their option to buy him at €2 million and also look forward to flipping him on for a substantial profit. Easy work, again.
The next one up? Noah Mbamba. You may remember him from being a very young debutant at Club Brugge, and he’s since been stuck on the edge of a very successful Bayer Leverkusen squad. He’s joined Fortuna on loan for the 2024/25 season and could have the same kickstart Tzolis and Jóhannesson did. One significant difference? No option to buy.
I seem to have written 1,000+ words on Peterborough and Fortuna Düsseldorf already. As we try to get these newsletters around 1,000 words mark, I’ll speedrun through these upcoming sections. Let’s go.
Nottingham Forest bag themselves a good ‘un
Nottingham Forest are getting a good one in Eric da Silva Moreira. He won our Bronze Ball award in our FIFA U-17 World Cup Team of the Tournament last year, excelling as a right-back for champions Germany.
Athletic and intense, direct and dribbly — it’s easy to see how he can be an impactful wing-back in the usual Nuno Espirito Santo system if and when all the other bits were up to standard, which they may be already — who knows?
Whether Forest is the right place for his development is another thing. This feels like the strange Rodrigo Ribeiro move from last winter but with a greater chance of success. Jorge Mendes does what Jorge Mendes wants.
Fifth tier to first tier in two years
That’s what 20-year-old Chrisantus Uche has achieved. We’ll very happily admit that we’d never heard of him until he popped up on Transfermarkt’s Latest Transfers page, but career progressions like his are eye-catching.
He was in the Extremaduran Tercera back in 2022, and now he’s joined La Liga club Getafe following a strong season at AD Ceuta in the third division.
We’re keen to watch him now. One kip at the data and the most cursory clip-watching on our very limited Wyscout package suggests he’s a box-to-boxer that can win the ball back and break open the game with powerful carries and incisive passes. Uche is one we’ll be keeping tabs on.
Assan Ouédraogo makes a sensible decision
He’s joined RB Leipzig. At one point he looked likely to go to prolific talent-gobblers Bayern München, but he’s gone into the Red Bull system instead.
The languid, game-driving midfielder is a big prospect in German football and this move offers him a pretty secure route to top-level first-team football. I still would’ve liked him at Eintracht Frankfurt, but that’s just me.
Everton getting cleverer?
Everton are in dire straits. It’s very conceivable that they could go bust if this proposed Friedkin takeover doesn’t go through, which is very possibly won’t. They’re in this state because they’ve spent a tonne of money very poorly.
They should’ve been signing more guys like Tim Iroegbunam, who it looks like they’re signing this summer. We like this one — there’s quite a bit of Amadou Onana to his skillset, and it’s a shame we didn’t get to see him on loan in the Championship last season to build on his promising season prior at QPR.
More like this, please, Everton.
And finally, all aboard the Adžić Express
Now led by Thiago Motta, it looks like Juventus are going to have a good look at the teenage Montenegrin in pre-season — and people will be surprised by what they see.
Yes, he’s coming out of Montenegro. Yes, he’s only 18. But yes, he’s a big boy with 65 senior games under his belt already. And yes, his skillset has a lot going for it.
He can pull off passes like in the GIF above on a regular basis; he whips set-pieces into great areas with whip and dip; he can bumper car between both boxes; he can smack shots in from range. There is an intrinsic power within his game that belies his current status and can give him a headstart.
Vasilije Adžić is one of the most exciting talents that you’ve never heard of.
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.
21 Under 21, by Not The Top 20
We are once again telling you to get over to NTT20.com to get involved in their rundown of the best 21 EFL players aged 21 or under. There’s a great selection of talents in it already, all in video/podcast form. Get on itttttttt.
His name is Amadou, by Llew Davies
Not André, Amadou. Llew breaks down the performance of the big Belgian against Slovakia at EURO 2024, which will serve as an audition for him to realise his grand plans that extend far beyond Goodison Park.
The Shortlist: Riccardo Calafiori, by Tom Curren and Stephen Ganavas
Another EURO-themed post as Stevie tells us why the press-killing Italy centre-back should be on your shortlists this summer, just as the general public are waking up to his ability and “aura”.
Talking Transfers: the Arsenal edition, with Phil Costa
How do Mikel Arteta’s Gunners go again? With another big summer, that’s how, as we discussed on this exclusive SCOUTED Notebook podcast. We talked standouts and targets, as well as the academy and more. It’s good stuff.
As we said last week, we’ll try hard to keep these coming over the coming weeks and months, particularly as the transfer window comes to a rolling boil.
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.