Emergency Broadcast: Dean Huijsen to Bournemouth

Last February, I wrote a piece titled ‘How Juventus are building the world’s best talent pipeline’ — see below. Now, all the hatchlings are flying the nest.

The first Juventus Next Gen-ers to leave the club were sent to Aston Villa, as part of a PSR-FFP mega-deal plotted out between the clubs that shipped Enzo Barrenechea and Samuel Iling-Junior to Birmingham and Douglas Luiz to Turin.

How Juventus are building the world's best talent pipeline

Juventus have never been associated with academy development. Yes, players have popped up here and there: Claudio Marchisio, Ciro Immobile, Moise Kean and Sebastian Giovinco come to mind. But the club’s academy has never been relied upon to constantly churn out first team products. Promotions have been ad hoc. Giovinco and Immobile barely even broached the first team.

SCOUTED NotebookStephen Ganavas

Next came the news that Matías Soulé would be on his way to join Roma, with Juventus using those funds in their pursuit of Atalanta’s Teun Koopmeiners. And now, the prodigious Dean Huijsen appears to be on his way to Bournemouth, making way for Jean-Clair Todibo.

There are a few questions to address with this deal, so let’s itemise them before diving into the details:

1. Why are Juventus selling Huijsen?
2. Why are they selling him for such a cheap fee?
3. What kind of player is Huijsen?
4. How will he fit at Bournemouth and in the Premier League?

Read on for the asnwers to those questions, and all the added insights. There might be a little cameo appearance from a proper Friend of SCOUTED and a true Football Twitter legend.

Why are Juventus selling Dean Huijsen?

This is a bit of a complicated topic. I think a chasm opened up between the club and player in January, when the Juventus management were left rather embarrassed after Huijsen U-turned on a loan move to Frosinone in order to join José Mourinho’s Roma instead.