Josh Acheampong hits his stride, Jamie Gittens hits the market, Ozeki hits a finish
All your curated wonderkid news - in one bitesize review
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Headliners
The players we watched this week.
Short…listed:
A short recommendation.
After adding Finn Jeltsch to your shortlist last week, I fancy adding another right-sided defender.
Get used to hearing about Josh Acheampong. When it comes to emerging prospects from the Chelsea academy — of which there are many — there are few more exciting than the 18-year-old defender.
Watch him on the pitch and you’ll be taken aback by two things: one, his lanky size and two, his smooth athleticism. Both shouldn’t go together, but they do — he has a tremendous coordination of his lanky limbs that manifests in speed, agility and control. They are also the bedrock of his defensive ability, where his eye-catching length enables him to win duels in the air and on the ground, lurching over the top of strikers to head the ball back or stretching a leg in to jab the ball away.
You’ll be even more moved when you see him stride through midfield with the ball. He has that in his locker, taking two or three defenders out of the game at a time. He’s also composed and confident as a manipulator and passer. For such a lanky frame, his ability on the ball is clean and smooth.
All in all, Acheampong is a complete package that is very much suited to the modern game.
In terms of pathway, he might have to follow the Levi Colwill route. He went on loan to the Championship as an 18-year-old and had an excellent season at Huddersfield Town. It proved to be a launchpad for his career, going on to impress on loan at Brighton & Hove Albion before establishing himself as a regular starter and occasional captain at Chelsea. Acheampong has all the skill and potential to do similar.
But, quite frankly, Chelsea should just put their trust in himright now. Give him opportunities, chuck him in when and where needed. If they do that, they'll save themselves a lot of time, hassle, money, and embarrassment.
HEATWATCH
SCOUTED50: Keeping tabs on the golden boys.
This Japanese centre-back has long been a small obsession of Llew’s and the focus of much of his J.LEAGUE watch sessions. As mentioned above, this week he captained Kawasaki Frontale and scored a 90+8’ equaliser - a monstrous header - in a crazy 3-3 draw. Don’t be surprised to see Takai arrives on European shores soon. And a reminder you can watch J.LEAGUE games - and track Takai’s progress - totally for free on the league’s YouTube channel.
Bayern München’s much-hyped forward hasn’t found things easy on loan to F.C. Heidenheim. The club are fighting relegation and Wanner has been starting from the bench more often than not - and is yet to score or assist in his first Bundesliga campaign. Don't let that fool you, though. He'll be back next season with a stronger loan or might even absorb some of Müller's minutes at Bayern. And if Bayer Leverkusen have no choice but to sell Florian Wirtz, they might look Wanner’s way.
SCOUTED Stats
The stat leaders piquing Jake’s interest.
⚽️ Assane Diao was the only U23 player to score and assist in a Big Five League game over the past week. Despite joining Como 1907 in January, the now-Senegalese international is the club's joint-top scorer in Serie A alongside Nico Paz and Patrick Cutrone.
🎒 Leny Yoro put those Go-Go-Gadget legs to work against Nottingham Forest, covering 428 yards of Progressive Carrying Distance, making him the first teenager in Europe's Big Five Leagues to break the 400+ barrier in a single game this season; the only other U23 players to do so are Jérémy Doku (twice), Piero Hincapié (twice) and Abdoulaye Niakhate Ndiaye.
🎯 Sávio was the only U23 player to create 5+ chances in the past week, making five Key Passes in Manchester City's 2-0 midweek win against Leicester City.
Want all the stat leaders and the full breakdown? Read Monday Night SCOUTED, every Monday…night.
Jake Entwistle
Watchlist
The players to keep an eye on – and where to find them.
🇧🇷 Jair Cunha (2005)
Red Bull Bragantino vs. Botafogo
Brasileirão — Saturday, 12 April 2025, 20:00 BST
The Brasileirão is two games and I will not blame you if your eyes are drawn to the Derby Paulista on Matchday Three. Palmeiras host Corinthians at 22:30 BST on Saturday, giving you the chance to watch Estevão and Vitor Roque against Memphis Depay; someone is going to incite a riot by standing on the ball. However, to whet your appetite, why not try to catch the two-footed, (nearly) two-metre centre-back colossus that is Jair Cunha?
After highlighting his tremendous physical capacity in the Brazil: Centre-Back Goldmine epic, Jair completed a €12m move to Botafogo. The Brazilian and Copa Libertadores champions are part of the Textor group, suggesting the pathway to Europe has been set. For now, you will have to settle for watching him in Brazil. Although the season is only two-games young, Jair has won 11/12 of his duels and made 16 clearances, 12 of which were made in the opening game against Palmeiras. Tune in to a Botafogo game to watch Jair as soon as you can. You definitely won’t miss him.
🇦🇷 Santiago Castro (2004)
Serie A — Sunday, 13 April 2025, 11:30 BST
Start your Sunday morning right with this Serie A banger. After six consecutive wins and a draw against Napoli, Vincenzo Italiano’s Bologna side are just one point behind La Dea and could leapfrog into third with a win.
The man to watch is Santiago Castro. Back from suspension, the Argentinian has scored eight goals and provided three assists in Serie A this season; Lamine Yamal (pretends to be shocked) is the only player born in 2004 or later with more Goals + Assists across Europe’s Big Five Leagues in 2024/25.
Not only has Castro proved to be a Big Game Player™ with goals against Milan, Inter, Roma and Lazio in Serie A this season, he is also responsible for both goals Bologna have scored against Atalanta this season. The first came in the 1-1 Serie A draw at the start of the season before he knocked Gian Piero Gasperini’s side out of the Coppa Italia with the only goal in the quarter-final tie. My mum always tells me that all good things come in threes…
Vox Populi
We’re listening - here's a quick poll, for fun.
Last week we asked you to play sporting director and choose a destination for three in-the-news players:
🥇 Franco Mastantuono - 61.5%
🥈 Andrey Santos - 38.5%
😢 Hugo Larsson - 0%
The responses were fantastic. Here’s a few:
💬 Tom A (Andrey Santos): “AC Milan - Firstly for vibes, and then saw that they've actually been linked already. Maybe me and Todd aren't the the only vibesy Sporting Directors.”
💬 Manute B (Franco Mastantuono): “Liverpool, they need to catch up to other big clubs who buy directly from South America.”
💬 Danny C (Franco Mastantuono): “Liverpool - we need to get into this South American youngster thing sooner rather than later and every single clip I've seen of Mastantuono excites me (plus that name in a scouse accent will be fantastic).”
💬 Rico L (Andrey Santos): “Liverpool. They have shown that they need some more depth at CM and Santos gives them enough versatility and talent to comfortably cover each of their slightly staggered CM positions. Enough ball winning and control to cover DM for Gravy, enough creativity and circulation to cover Macca at CM, and a box crashing ability that would fit at CAM as well. He wouldn’t be the sexiest signing but could check a lot of boxes with one player who is still developing as well.”
💬 Jake A (Franco Mastantuono): “Newcastle United. Desperate need for a new right winger and with Isak and Gordon being more of a "runner" a "ball to feet" R like Mastantuono could provide a really nice balance to the front three.”
💬 Louis A (Andrey Santos): “Manchester United. Midfielders going out in the summer and after watching this guy play for Brazil’s youth teams, he could get in any team and could be the solution to a midfield like United’s.”
Well, if we’ve learned one thing, it’s that Liverpool need to sign all the players. Thanks for all the responses, and apologies if I had to leave you out this time.
Vox Populi is going to take a week off so we can, one final time, turn your attention to our first reader survey. We’ll be leaving it up and accepting responses, but we won’t push it again for a while - so if you’re a SCOUTED reader who would like to help us survive, this is a great, quick, and very free way to do so.
In the coming weeks, we’ll be going deeper with more specific surveys to better understand what you guys value about our work. For now, here’s this:
Responding to your feedback
The Technical Area, 8 April 2025
Hey readers,
I'm back! Kinda. First off: The Technical Area will not be returning on a month-to-month basis. Writing those blogs was an amazing experience that I miss very much - hence, being here right now - but we want to be careful about how and when we reach your email inbox. We only have 12 self-imposed publication slots a month (!) and we need to ensure all the football-related writing you pay for has its place.
But this column is great fun and incredibly fulfilling and genuinely very useful, so expect it to begin dropping sporadically again - whenever the opportunity or need arises.
Whenever we write something not in a newsletter, we will point you towards it in a newsletter. So keep opening your emails!
I'm also going to attempt to respect both mine and your time by being a little more succinct. To that end:
Responding to your feedback
The problem with SCOUTED has always been that it grew out of a few teenager's shared hobby: we are here for passion, not profit. That's corny, but the point is our focus is and has always been 95% editorial quality, 5% business, when the split should be much closer to 50-50.
So we have to close that gap significantly. This isn't us selling out, it's a necessity. Sadly, we simply don't make anywhere close to enough money to survive.
There were so many great items of feedback, but what struck me most was the care you all feel for this website. So many of you had clearly put a lot of thought into your suggestions; many more just said nice things. This means the world to me, and I felt it was only fair I wrote back in return. So here we are.
I've selected a few points I felt compelled to respond to. If your response isn't included below, please know I have certainly read it (probably multiple times) and appreciate it hugely. Thank you so much - I hope we can repay your faith by building something great.
Tom Curren
That’s all, folks. See you next Friday.
For everything on the next generation, stay tuned to SCOUTED.
