Transfer Time
The free newsletter for scouting aficionados.
SCOUT NOTES returns! It’s been just under a month since the last one but other, arguably more important, stuff has got in the way.
This issue is infused with a distinct transfer flavour to it. Even though it’s taking a little while for silly season to come to the boil, things are starting to simmer now and our Interesting Transfers spreadsheet is filling up.
We’ll be back throughout the summer of transfer-heavy SCOUT NOTES, and we’ll also be doing more Talking Transfers focussing on specific clubs and broader round-ups of the movers and shakers in the market.
Time to turn the Page
What a dismal end to the season for Cymru. A drab 0-0 draw in Faro against Portugal was billed as a national embarrassment, then it was compounded by a limp 4-0 loss against Slovakia in a half-empty Trnava stadium.
Rob Page’s tenure as manager, which was thrust upon him after Ryan Giggs stepped down following domestic violence charges, is all but over. The fans don’t want him there, he knows it, the players know it, the end is nigh.
But the silver lining was a pair of prospects making their senior debut.
Lewis Koumas — yes, the scouse son of Jason — added energy to the side in both games, almost scoring against Gibraltar with a typically sharp touch-and-shot in the second half. His involvement were a reward for a great season at Liverpool, where he scored 14 in 23 at academy level and bagged on his senior debut in the FA Cup.
Charlie Crew was the other. He’s been fast-tracked through the Cymru system after captaining his country at last year’s U-17 EURO, where he impressed. His quarter of an hour in the first friendly sets him up for a first-team role at Leeds United next season, where he’s yet to debut.
Whoever the next manager is, Koumas and Crew should feature prominently in their plans for the foreseeable future — and long beyond that.
Extremely Bayer Leverkusen
The invincible Bundesliga club have just spent €15 million to pinch 19-year-old Jeanuël Belocian from Stade Rennais. It’s an extremely Bayer Leverkusen transfer. Seriously, it’s difficult to get more Bayer Leverkusen than this.
It makes plenty of sense: he fits the club and suits the league, he can cover multiple left-sided roles in Xabi Alonso’s system, and he is a popular profile of defender with the potential to develop into a big-money asset down the line.
One of the points of interest about this move? It means Stade Rennais have sold another of their academy graduates to the Bundesliga, after Bayern München strong-armed them for Mathys Tel a couple of summers ago. Désiré Doué may be the next to go, despite his status as a game-changing starter in the first team, and that would complete an unwanted hat-trick.
Belocian, Tel and Doué were all part of the France side that triumphed at the U-17 EURO in 2022. Losing all three in the two years since then is a shame.
How do Fulham replace João Palhinha?
They get Eric Martel, that’s how. We are once again actively advocating for Fulham to go after the Germany U-21 captain to help replace the Portuguese tackle monster. And we stress help replace, because they’d need more than just him to do it, probably.
Martel has a very similar profile to Palhinha. Back when he was on loan at Austria Wien, he was putting up some monster ball-winning numbers of his own. Pumping into tackles, gobbling up interceptions, competing in the air, and moving the ball quickly if not always accurately. That’s a Palhinha.
After that loan, parent club RB Leipzig sold Martel to 1. FC Köln for something like €1.2 million — a proper bargain — and he’s since racked up 67 games there, even including a European qualifying and group stage campaign.
Köln’s relegation from the Bundesliga activates a clause in his contract that allows him to leave for less than €5 million. That’s another bargain. He’s said that he will stay at the club to help them back up, but it’s definitely worth chucking a few offers at them to stress-test that sentiment.
Our invoice will be in the post, Mr. Khan.
Tastes like promotiooooooooon
Sticking in west London, Brentford have made a move that we like a lot.
They’ve officially promoted Kim Ji-soo — the 19-year-old centre-back they signed from the South Korean second division last summer, obviously — to their first-team squad ahead of the coming season.
We like this a lot because we like Kim a lot. He was one of the players we picked out in our first-ever piece on this ‘ere Notebook (see below) and is a top centre-back prospect. He’s athletic and elegant, an adaptable defender, a two-footed passer, and a very composed operator in general.
Llew Davies
He gets the bump up after a bedding in season with the B team. If you didn’t know, Brentford’s B team operates outside of the traditional academy system in English football.
They do their own thing, organising their own games, all focussed on developing an eclectic squad that includes home-grown talent sourced from the EFL, Nigerian centre-backs, Uzbek wingers, and Romeo Beckham.
Kim will be one to look out for this coming (pre-)season, and there are a few more B teamers at Brentford that will be following in his footsteps soon-ish.
The youngest players at EURO 2024
From Albania to Ukraine, Baturina to Zaïre-Emery, here’s the youngest player from every national team squad at EURO 2024.
R/Soccer gave us untold amounts of grief for not sorting it by age, and we sort of get their point, but we simply cannot be arsed to change it so your stuck with it in alphabetical order of the nation’s English name. Tough luck.
But which player are you most excite to watch? From our own SCOUTED perspective, Lamine Yamal’s first-ever EUROs is exciting. We also think Warren Zaïre-Emery and João Neves will astonish the casual viewer if they get decent minutes. The bolter could be someone like Semih Kılıçsoy.
We’ll be back later in the week with a one to watch piece. Eyes peeled.
In case you missed it…
This is a new section to the SCOUT NOTES newsletter in which we highlight things that you may have missed. Baaasically, we’re blowing our own trumpet and trying to generate some extra clicks and subscriptions. Try and stop us.
- Welcome to the Wharton Age, by Tom Curren and Phil Costa
Adam Wharton is everyone’s new favourite player. Hise from Championship prospect to Premier League starter and EURO 2024 goer has been mad. We interviewed him back in January. We were ahead of the Wharton curve.
It’s what it says on the tin — our Team of the recent UEFA U-17 EURO. Stevie put it together and it’s a great round-up of the standouts in Cyprus. If you want to get ahead of the curve on the future of (Euro) football, you read that.
- Identity: Arsenal, by Jake W. Fox
This is an epic. The tremendous Jake W. Fox makes his SCOUTED debut with over 6,000 words on Arsenal. It chronicles the club’s storied history with youth players, weaving in and out of different eras, all to assess how much of Arsène has rubbed off on Arteta. It’s fantastic. Give it a read.
- João Neves: straight to the very top, by Llew Davies
This is one of our most recent SCOUTED50 profiles and it focuses on the next big thing out of Benfica. It’s over 4,000 words on the finer details of the little man’s game, which the elite clubs will love. Read up on Neves right now.
