6 young players rumoured to make big transfers this summer

As I was trawling around the rags looking for fun stuff to put in a transfer rumour roundup, I noticed a bit of a trend. There are a bunch of really young, fairly under-the-radar players getting linked to huge moves at the moment. How much of this is teams actually scouting these guys and how much is agents chatting nonsense is not obvious, though let’s be real, it’s usually the latter.

In any event, I thought it would be fun to look at some players we haven’t discussed much on the newsletter before, since this is the first time they’ve come up as garnering interest from top clubs, for the most part.

We start with two guys Chelsea has reportedly already signed, and the first one is a bit of an outlier in this group, since he’s definitely been mentioned in these pages before. But I thought we’d give him a second look, since we’re here.

Geovany Quenda — Sporting CP

The Athletic is reporting that Quenda and the next guy on our list, Dario Essugo, are basically already Chelsea players. Quenda had been heavily linked to Manchester United, where he would have linked up with his old boss Ruben Amorim, but apparently the Blues offered more favorable terms.

Chelsea will spend a reported £43m to sign Quenda, who is clearly an extremely talented young player, but does not yet have an obvious best position. He’s spent most of his time with Sporting as an attacking wingback, though he’d probably prefer to play as a more advanced winger.

Because he’s been this kind of half-and-half player, his radars for both positions look pretty jacked up. Quenda is really average defensively for a fullback:

And is an outrageously low-value shooter for a winger:

But Quenda is an incredible athlete, plus dribbler, and gifted passer. He will need to improve dramatically as a shooter to become a winger who can start for Chelsea and live up to a £43m price tag, but his ceiling appears to be extremely high. Problem with both him and the next guy (and most of their signings) is Chelsea does not ever seem to consider the potential floor and risk profile of these investments.

Dario Essugo — Las Palmas (on loan from Sporting CP)

So, caveat on Essugo’s radar: He plays for Las Palmas, who are bad. It’s pretty hard for a central midfielder to put up good stats on a relegation fodder team. But yeah, he’s providing essentially zero passing value, which is not what you want to see from a midfielder.

He is a very solid ball-winner, and he’s excellent at dribbling past the first line of pressure and bursting forward. I understand why Chelsea looks at this guy’s tackling, dribbling, and physique, and says he fits our defensive midfielder profile. If you squint, he looks a little like Moises Caicedo Jr.

But what if he never learns how to pass? And we can play this game with every single young BlueCo signing. They all have one or two really outstanding components to their game, and one really big glaring hole that, if they never fix, they’re simply never going to be an impact player for Chelsea.

Every team makes the occasional gamble on players like that. Only Chelsea spends 8-figure fees on dozens of them.

Hamza Igamane — Rangers

Rangers striker Hamza Igamane is a top target for Everton, according to Pete O’Rourke, who says Sevilla and Marseille are also interested.

Igamane is a pretty well-rounded player, offering a lot more passing and pressing value than the average striker. He’s very strong and tough to push off the ball. He gets a high volume of shots, though you’d expect this when his team has a significant talent advantage against most teams. He passes an initial smell test for sure.

But you might have noticed his xG per 90 and shot OBV aren’t looking amazing. A quick glance at the shot chart isn’t either. He’s got 10 goals on the season, but only from 7.55 xG, and there just aren’t a ton of really high value chances here. He gets a lot of shots blocked.

Depending on the price, it might be worth taking a chance on a young striker with a good physical profile and seeing if you can improve his movement and ability to get shots off quickly. But this is enough of a red flag that I wouldn’t pay a lot of money for him, or expect him to score a lot of goals in his first season in the Premier League.

Benjamin Cremaschi — Inter Miami

Lucas Arnold reports that Tottenham Hotspur are one of many clubs keeping tabs on Benjamin Cremaschi, an attack-minded midfielder for Inter Miami. He’s played all over the pitch, getting some run on the wings and as a second striker, but his future is probably as more of a box-to-box midfielder.

He’s a decent dribbler and box crasher, and his work rate is solid, but he’s severely lacking in some core competencies if he’s going to make a jump up to Premier League level. Cremaschi just isn’t a very good passer or tackler at this point in his career.

If Cremaschi is going to take a step forward in his career, he needs some kind of bridge move between MLS and a Tottenham-like substance. The Netherlands, Belgium, and Portugal are probably places his agent should start targeting.

Semih Kılıçsoy — Beşiktaş

Kılıçsoy’s hype train has slowed down and his agent is intent on getting it fired back up again. Caught Offside says Newcastle and Aston Villa are looking into him, and that he’s valued at around €20m.

The radars don’t do him any favors because he’s split time almost equally between left wing and striker, both this season and last, but it still appears that Kılıçsoy’s shooting production has dropped off dramatically this year.

I am sorry to say that, to me, this just looks like A Guy. I don’t think he’d be a disastrous signing for anyone, but he also does not appear to be showing breakout superstar signs. Decent young all-around attacker. Can do a job. I suspect that Serie A or the Bundesliga is in his immediate future, rather than Aston Villa or Newcastle.

Franco Mastantuono — River Plate

TeamTalk says every big club on the planet would like to sign Franco Mastantuono. Real Madrid, Barcelona, Man City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea. Just get them all in there for SEO, boys. I know Google is obliterating your business model right now by having Gemini spit out factually incorrect nonsense instead of showing people websites, but you can still get into that news carousel for “[insert team] rumours,” I believe in you.

OK, state of digital media rant over. You shouldn’t read too much into the radar here because it was an age 17 season, but here’s a guy who currently loves to rip a lot of shots and does not yet have the brain to tell him when it’s not a great idea to shoot.

When I watch Mastantuono, I see an Erik Lamela regen. There’s obviously some bias here given that they came from the same club, but he’s a skinny and roughly 5’11”, left-footed, right winger-CAM tweener who’s good at set pieces and ripping absolute bangers. He might not be a complete enough passer or good enough athlete to get to the very top, but that sweet left foot is going to take him to some pretty big clubs in Europe, at least.

Lots of negativity in this newsletter, huh? Sorry, but most hyped up young talents do not go on to become good Premier League-level starters. I’m not rooting against any of these guys, but these guys should all face a really high level of scrutiny from scouting departments before their bosses invest a ton of money into them. And in this week’s rumours, I saw more question marks than anything else.

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