Scouting Thursdays — An Update

Just over a year ago, I did a series of weekly Twitter threads in which I scouted a number of lesser-known youth players who I believed could provide interesting market opportunities for certain clubs.

Finding players who were putting up impressive numbers, I followed it up by looking at video footage to confirm the data before displaying it in a neat little thread if I deemed the player worth it.

The work was carried out over the course of ten weeks, leaving me with the following line-up of outfield players:

It’s been a year, so let’s check back in with these players and see how they are developing:

Kik Pierie — Centre-back — 18 — Heerenveen

Kik was the youngest player of the group and was already starting for an upper mid-table Eredivisie side so I wasn’t expecting him to move anywhere: at Heerenveen, he is in the ideal place to continue his development. He finished last season as the team’s third-most-used player and is their most utilized outfielder this campaign.

While he started the season at left-back, he has been exclusively playing as a left-sided centre-back since the start of December. In my eyes, this is the best position for his skill-set and the place where he should find his highest value.

Being only 18 and an important starter for his side, he is in the right place for now. But it would be nice to see him eventually make the jump to a big Eredivisie team.

Alexander Barboza — Centre-back — 23 — Defensa y Justicia (River Plate loan)

Since graduating from the River academy, Barboza has been back and forth on loan to Defensa y Justicia. When I first looked at him, he was River’s third CB option, so was clearly playing well but not much.

Now, he’s back on loan at Defensa y Justicia for the 2018/19 season. They’re second in the Argentinian league, well ahead of River Plate and Barboza is having another good campaign.

Despite having played over1000 minutes, his incredible dribbling numbers (1.4 succesful/90 with only 0.3 failed) remain intact. As a result, he’d be a promising purchase for a possession-based team in Europe’s big leagues or possibly a high-tiered side in one of the peripheral leagues — Basel have shown interest.

River have Quarta coming through but just sold Maidana to Toluca and their most used CB (Pinola) is 35, so might be inclined to give Barboza a shot soon — I’d encourage European teams to take a shot on him as soon as possible.

Angeliño —Left-back — 22— PSV

Generally, Transfermarkt numbers are… questionable. That notwithstanding, when we first looked at him, Angeliño was playing at NAC Breda on loan from City and his market value was €700k. Now, he’s playing for PSV and his market value is at €12m — an impressive rise in just a year.

A very offensively-minded wing-back, he fits right in at the league leaders and has even impressed in the second round of UCL fixtures — 4 open play key passes against Barcelona surely caught the eye of many.

I definitely got this one right, though at this rate he might even end up surpassing my expectations.

Robert Gumny — Right-back — 20— Lech Poznan

Gumny is an interesting one. He held on to the starting spot at Lech Poznan for the entirety of the 2017/18 season, finishing with over 3000' played between Ekstrakladza and Europa League qualifiers, which even lead to interest from Gladbach.

Unfortunately, a bad knee injury in this summer meant he missed pre-season, only starting his first league game in November. He still managed to put in 450 minutes (and contribute with a goal and an assist) before the winter break and seems fully recovered. Given that Genoa appear to be after him, this is a positive sign.

Kris Olsson — Centre-Midfielder— 23 — Krasnodar

Kris Olsson is another success story. When I first wrote about him, the 2017 Allsvenskan season had just finished and he was impressive as a deep-lying play-maker for AIK.

During the 2018 campaign, he moved further forward, into a left centre-midfield role where he had more final third influence. In this new positions, he impressed once again.

Krasnodar offered the Swedish side €5M and took him to Russia where he’ll be competing for the title within a system that suits him. He even has a couple months to adapt during the winter break. I’m a big fan of this move.

Ifeanyi Matthew— Centre-Midfielder — 22— Lillestrom

Ifeanyi Matthew looked to me like a very interesting ball-carrying midfielder when I watched him a year ago: even more so because he plays for a low-end team in Norway and could be picked up on the cheap.

In the 2018 season, his defensive numbers dropped quite a bit, but he kept his pretty good dribbling numbers as his ball-carrying profile suggested and was fine on the ball overall.

Despite a tendency to shoot from anywhere, I believe he could still be a good asset for a slightly higher-tiered team — he would be cheap and he only has a year left on his deal now.

Benjamin Bourigeaud — Midfielder — 25 — Rennes

Bourigeaud is a pretty versatile player who can be utilized as a centre-midfielder, attacking-midfielder or from wide on either side of the pitch.

Last season, he played mostly from the right and finished the season with 17 goals + assists in Ligue 1, which was also mostly on par with his expected stats.

This season he’s taken over the left flank, and has 7 G+A so far, though his key passes have taken a huge hit when compared to last season. In a team with Ismaila Sarr, Hatem Ben Arfa and even Benjamin Andre, he’s understandably the least flashy creator of the Rennes midfield lot.

Bourigeaud is someone with good shot volume and overall end product from wide, on top of being a good set-piece taker and a useful asset for Rennes. However, he’s the oldest player on this list and I’m not expecting him to become much more than that anymore.

This one is on me. I think I overestimated his ability to sustain certain creative numbers he posted last season. There’s also a chance systemic differences are to blame for his performance drop, which something I’ll try to look into further.

Younes Namli — Winger— 24— PEC Zwolle

Last season, PEC Zwolle had an impressive start to the season that led to a comfortable 8th place finish in the Eredivisie. This season they’re having a bit more trouble, but Namli is still doing his thing: he is his team’s main creative force, having largely kept his key pass and dribbling numbers from last season.

PEC, as a team, are actually taking more shots this season than last but Younes is making a loss attempts at goal — from 3.3 to 1.9 per 90, from 1 to 0.3 in the box. His shot locations had to improve, but I didn’t want him to stop shooting.

Either way, shooting wasn’t his game’s main asset (7 goals in over 5000 league minutes) and he’s still an exciting player at a below-average team. With only one year left on his deal, he’d be a good pick up for plenty of teams.

Ollie Watkins — Winger — 23 — Brentford

Just when I thought Brentford were play-off candidates, they’ve dropped down to 17th in the Championship after a tough season.

Ollie Watkins had to overcome an injury throughout November and is obviously not playing in quite as healthy a system as he was a year ago. But he still has 7 goals and 3 assists from 4.7 xG and 2.88 xA (shout out to @blades_analytic for the numbers). Despite this, he’s still on par to beat last season’s tally of 14 goals + assists, but his dribbling and creative numbers have fallen a bit.

Nevertheless, he’s more than talented enough to make the jump to the Premier League soon and he could pick up steam yet again soon as Brentford are gradually putting together a sequence of positive performances.

Kerim Mrabti — Forward — 25 — Birmingham

Finally, we come to Kerim Mrabti, a Swede with the perfect skill-set for a supporting striker role but who might fall through the cracks simply because his attacking output isn’t particularly impressive on paper.

His underlying numbers, though, have always remained solid — even last season, despite his Djurgarden side falling to 7th in the table. Mrabti creates for himself and for others, carries and holds up the ball well.

When Mrabti’s contract ran out, I was surprised to hear that there weren’t many clubs after his signature. Newcastle were rumoured in the summer, but he ended up at Birmingham eventually.

I’m not sure how I feel about a player this talented ending up in the team that sees less of the ball in the Championship (Birmingham average 43% possession at the moment) and one that has such an established forward duo already in Lukas Jutkiewicz and Che Adams. I suppose, though, its better than him somehow ending up without a club at all.

Overall, I’m quite pleased. After a year, most of the players have either taken a step-up already or have continued to develop in the right direction.

Of the players who didn’t move yet, I’d say that all but one of them would still make great additions for clubs better than the ones they’re in.

The process works.