Hahaha yeah fair very jealous of that 😂 at least now I know who to keep an eye out for, hadn’t even heard of Said El Mala!

He’s shot hungry - and will favour that - but never blind to his other options in front of goal. That balance is pretty much exactly what we need from our centre forward.

(Also tbf we joked about this elsewhere but it’s a bit strange how similar Billy’s list and mine ended up being. Because otherwise there appears to be a good variety of picks across the SCOUTED50 participants this year)

If I’m striving to be one step ahead, Alex is already two haha. The original Tifo hipster king for a reason !

A PL scout friend of mine has been urging me to watch Yan Diomandé for a minute now.

Anyways, SCOUTED50 is as good a time as any to pay homage to an incredible football publication run by brilliant people. I actually found my onto twitter (“the other place”) after coming across an online version of Scouted’s first handbook years ago.

Please support their work if you’re able to 🫡💫

As always with me, I couldn’t help but tweak the definition of ‘breakout star’ to a slightly longer term outlook.

Guys further down the list like Yirenkyi and Bazoumana are personal faves I had to include. Though two I suspect I’ll regret not fitting in: Kader Meïté and Bahoya.

Annous getting 20 mins to strut his stuff at CF would send me to the moon.

😂

I’ve been a massive fan of his for years! He’s superb, have a sneaky suspicion he breaks through as a starter for them this year (replacing Macca).

I guess Zubi, Øde and Ethan do all of those things? But tbf not quite the same (and in the same circumstances) as Jones does. Great profile.

For sure, though I have to say I come away feeling pretty positive about us - and particularly the quality of our squad - this year.

Yeah I was very impressed by him! Thought he held himself well under lots of pressure, bodes well

Ah gotcha! Mb misunderstood initially haha, think they came into it but agreed were were better. Particularly in the first half

Agreed. Ode/Eze ten minutes sooner when it was clear that we were no longer controlling the game. By 55 mins we no longer pressed.

Free kick 2 inches to the right and it is saved. 2 inches to the left and it bounces off the post & back into play (maybe off Raya, though). A truly worthy game winner.

argh frustrating tho

Momentum swung their way around 55 mins (partly as a result of Zubi waning). Imo then was the opportunity to bring on Ødegaard and Eze to regain stability, add creativity. Instead, Liverpool bring on CuJo to stamp control on the game. If we lost it tactically, we lost it there.

I don’t even think we were largely crap! Enjoyed the first half, they outplayed us in the second but think we were arguably the better team overall. Some poor individual performances on both sides though for sure