Evan Ferguson: just you wait and see
The definitive SCOUTED50 profile on the prodigious Irish striker.
SCOUTED50 is our collection of the fifty young talents we believe are best positioned to break into the mainstream during 2023/24. Throughout the season, we’ll be detailing all fifty in definitive profiles.
Read the full list here. Evan Ferguson was SCOUTED50’s best-placed player. I don’t know if you can ‘win’ such a list, but if you can, then he did.
This profile was produced as part of a commercial collaboration with SkillCorner, SCOUTED’s official data partner. SkillCorner’s tracking and performance data is used by more than 150 of the world’s biggest clubs, leagues and confederations. Learn more.
All stats correct as of 04/06/2024 unless otherwise noted.
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Scouting players will never be an exact science, but Brighton have certainly come close to mastering the formula.
As SCOUTED’s Billy Carpenter described in great detail, the Seagulls’ meticulous plans have famously appealed to South American talent in particular, who seek stability when moving to Europe.
But Brighton’s knowledge of the Irish market has been just as impressive. It’s a speciality rooted in the appointment of John Morling as academy manager in July 2012 - Morling worked for the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) for seven years - and later cemented by Leroy McCourt, who remains the club’s leading Irish scout.
The club have a host of Irish talent on the books as a result. Andrew Moran impressed on loan at Blackburn this season, while Jamie Mullins (signed from Bohemians) and Mark O’Mahony (Cork City) have also made waves in Premier League 2. But their crowning piece is undoubtedly Evan Ferguson, whose immense quality has been obvious since he featured as a 14-year-old for Bohemians against Chelsea in a pre-season friendly - and looked comfortable in a way that can only be described as disturbing.
Ferguson may have been fresh-faced that day, but watching him glide around the pitch with broad shoulders and muscular thighs, barging Kurt Zouma off the ball more than once, revealed a physical potential not seen in many.
He’s got brains to match the brawn, too. There is an ease in which the teenager moves, equally comfortable with his back to goal as he is driving towards it, attacking the box for headers or cutbacks and finishing without fuss. If you’ve watched him, you’ve felt it: the immediate assumption you’re watching a man in his mid-twenties, and the numb shock when his age is revealed.
Players are told early to find their ‘superpowers’: skills or qualities that might separate them from the rest. That nomenclature seems hyperbolic in most cases, but not here. There are few words to describe Ferguson in front of goal - superhuman is one of them.
The latest SCOUTED50 profiles, in case you missed them…
And so, when we gathered our friends and contributors last October to vote for this year’s SCOUTED50, Ferguson was a natural and runaway winner. He received 189 aggregated votes - fourth-placed Mathys Tel received just 89. Warren Zaïre-Emery and Lamine Yamal completed the top three. Last summer, that trifecta seemed set to explode.
Briefly, it did. Ferguson led the way - a hat-trick against Newcastle United just as we were collating SCOUTED50 certainly influenced things. The world seemed braced for the arrival of one of the most naturally gifted nines it had ever seen.
Then: nothing. Evan Ferguson has not scored since November. Of our top three, Zaïre-Emery and Yamal have comfortably cemented themselves amongst the best players in the world. Ferguson’s name, meanwhile, has quietly disappeared from the headlines.
What happened? Did we get it wrong? Did Ferguson become rubbish overnight, or was he never that good to begin with?
Of course it’s not that simple. Let’s dig out the data and dive in.
In this profile:
What’s gone wrong for this prodigious talent?
Analysing what makes him a “special striker”
His ‘traditional’ skillset in a misfitting role
Assessing how he closes the gap on the best
Forecasting the next step for the great Irish hope
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