The Shortlist

Everything I learned editing SCOUTED in October

Looking back at the spooky month: an Editor's Letter, for you

Tom Curren

31 Oct 2025 — 8 min read

This is The Shortlist, your free weekly dispatch of short-form stories from the editorial team at SCOUTED: Tom Curren, Jake Entwistle and Llew Davies.

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Hey readers! Tom here, flying solo this week.

I suppose you could think of this as an Editor’s Letter - or, for the old heads among us, a revamp of the old Technical Area. As many of you know I’m not much of an analyst myself, so I thought it’d be fun to reflect on what I’ve learned about the beautiful game by editing Jake and Llew’s work in October - and perhaps convince you to check out some of the stories you’ve missed.

A few bits first:

How is SCOUTED doing? Are we okay? Is ChatGPT killing us? (No)
My favourite reader comment this month (you guys are really nice)
The things I learned editing our magazine this month

Happy spooky day! Let’s go.

I will survive

Before we get into the football, here’s a little sidebar on the magazine’s health - it’s been a while!

October began with SCOUTED50, our big annual project that floods social media with voter’s lists and graphics until everyone’s totally sick of seeing us everywhere. We always get a nice bump of new readers around this time and 2025 was no different. We’re very close to our preliminary target of 1000 paid scouting nerds, now - certainly not the end goal, but a big step towards true sustainability.

If you’re new around these parts, the three of us would like to take another moment to say thanks. We’re working as hard as we can to build a magazine that’s sustainable, fun, and offers a place to escape from the mind-numbing speed of social media. We’re really very grateful to the old subscribers and the new - this has been a long, difficult journey, but we’re all feeling great about the work.

You’ve offered us a platform to do really cool, original stuff, and we’re determined to make the most of that. Thank you - more news to come soon.

Before we get to the stories, may I ask a moment of your time to please consider upgrading your membership?

We know lots of our readers rely on SCOUTED’s investigations and analysis in a professional capacity, at clubs or agencies or elsewhere. We’ve kept our base price as low as possible to not price-out casual readers, but things are very tight.

So please, if you feel you get more value from the magazine than you pay for - or you just have the means and desire to give us a little extra support - consider upgrading to the SCOUT tier below. (Or the Director of Football tier if you’re insane, but we don’t expect anyone to do that - although every time someone does I scream so loud my roommates conduct a welfare check. Up to you.)

Support us by upgrading :-)

Thank you :-)

Our favourite reader comment this month

Lots of you joined the conversation in October, and we’re super grateful for your time - we know the website doesn’t offer the social feeling of a platform like Substack, so it’s really cool to see so many leaving us nice, thoughtful and smart comments anyway. I thought it’d be nice to start platforming our favourites.

Sometimes simple hits the hardest. Thanks so much to Matt W for leaving this one - it means a lot to all of us.

How I went viral in 21 minutes (10-step guide to success)

Let’s start the recap in September, because Llew’s been off for much of this month and this is my newsletter, and I can do whatever I want. Leave a comment if you’re upset.

This season, you’ll have begun hearing the name Mohamed Kader Meïté regularly. That’s not just because he’s among Jake’s favourite centre-forward prospects, but because his 21-minute performance against Lyon in September went viral. The teenage titan came off the bench in the second half and turned the game on its head with his clever running and enormous frame, scoring one and creating another in a 3-1 victory. That was the last time Rennes won a game of football, but I think that makes Llew’s enormous breakdown even more valuable: it’s crucial not to get lost in contextual noise when evaluating young talent.

Llew walks us through almost every touch the big striker took to turn the game against Lyon: from shifty, intelligent off-ball movement that confounds two experienced centre-backs to the dogged defensive work that culminated in a red card for Tyler Morton to the sheer box-presence that flipped the game on its head. You’ll emerge with a crystalline picture of Meïté’s qualities, and understand just why everyone’s so excited.

The best thing you’ll ever read (NOT clickbait) (but what if it was)

I think everyone interested in SCOUTED50 has read it by now, so I’ll be brief - this year, as we do every year, we curated a list of our favourite breakthrough talents for your enjoyment. Not prescriptive or predictive, we like to think of S50 as a giant watchlist, shaped by our trademark taste, vibes, and the whirring cogs in Llew’s brain.

I’m really, really proud of the work my teammates did this year. I think it’s such a cool, unique list with some twists and turns (as well as a bunch of totally expected names, of course) and I can’t think of a better way to prepare for a season of football than by reading it. SCOUTED50 genuinely improves how much I enjoy the game and I’m sure it’ll do the same for you.

Also, my Max Dowman copy went lowkey viral last night, so that was cool. Nice words still matter :-)

A crab 1v1s a horse (quickscopes only, on Shipment)

I dunno how I managed this, but last year I brute-forced my way out of a 15-year addiction to Elon Musk’s hellhole and replaced it with other, smaller addictions to other, slightly less horrible social media platforms. Hooray! In my place, I force Jake to stare at his timeline for fourteen hours a day so we don’t miss any of the #discourse.

He responded to the recent Rice v Caicedo debate in the only way he knows: with reasoned analysis that involves a crab and a horse. By reading this brilliant edition of Monday Night SCOUTED you’ll be enlightened on a) how Jake thinks about midfield Archetypes b) a really interesting approach to understanding Area of Effect (AOE) and c) what ‘chelae’ means.

Genuinely, I don’t think you’ll find analysis this weird, smart and bespoke anywhere else. Jake is really finding his groove and I’m super proud.

Michael Kayode is Trent Alexander-Arnold, 100% confirmed (gone wild)

Speaking of our beloved data nerd, Jake’s launched a new newsletter: The Rabbit Hole.

Here’s how it works: every week, Jake scours FBref for weekly stat leaders among our procession of next-generation talent: stuff like who made the most key-passes, take-ons, touches etc. We use this as a screening process for spotting standouts, so we can add them to the SCOUTED Database and investigate further.

Occasionally, Jake spots something that sends him into a spiral from which he won’t emerge until his eyes are square, he’s dripping in sweat and 3000 words have somehow appeared. For edition one, he spotted something really cool in Michael Kayode’s output (no, it wasn’t launching throw-ins like an Olympic shot-putt). If you wanna go further, this past week he spent hours dissecting Mike Penders weird heatmaps. It’s great, illustrative stuff for the freaks and weirdos (said with love).

You won’t believe this one trick to replace Harry Kane

I really loved this newsletter because a) I’m an England fan/freak and b) it was incredibly demonstrative of the way Jake’s thinking about the evolving role of the modern centre-forward. He begins by describing how Harry Kane’s superpower can be platformed by pairing him with another profile: at Bayern it’s Nicolas Jackson, who makes the pitch as big as possible so Kane can drop and spray balls around.

Jake takes this learning (and, of course, his thinking about Archetypes) to the three prospects lighting up England’s youth teams: Shim Mheuka, Divin Mubama and Alejandro Gomes Rodríguez. The takeaways are fascinating and you’ll learn lots about how the new generation of forwards are being bred for the emerging meta.

Return of the King (Extended Edition)

Finally, if you somehow missed it on Wednesday, Llew returned to action like Isildur’s Heir at Pelennor Fields. No oliphaunts were harmed in the making of this newsletter.

Llew’s extensive, touch-by-touch breakdowns are the best way to learn about an emerging talent, and I’m not just blowing smoke for the sake of it. His hit rate is extraordinary and he picks up the little details that make you point at the screen like that DiCaprio meme when the player in question inevitably breaks through: for instance, you wouldn’t be at all surprised at Eli Junior Kroupi’s extraordinary introduction to the Premier League if you’d read his breakdown from March.

All that’s to say: when Llew deconstructs a player, you should listen. And you should get in on Said El Mala early, because he said so.