At the end of last season, Alex Scott delivered a calm and measured press conference that outlined his happiness at Bristol City, the pleasant surprise of playing so much football and the potential perils of making a move to a Premier League so early in your career.
True to his performances on the field and general in-game mentality, it spoke of an individual far beyond his 18 years, but also, at least on the surface, gave rise to the theory that of City’s three primary assets - Scott, Han-Noah Massengo and Antoine Semenyo - he is the one most likely to stay beyond this summer.
That theory is a sound one, based on Massengo’s contract situation, Semenyo’s to an extent - as the Robins do hold a one-year option which, slightly curiously hasn’t been taken up yet - and the weight in interest around the striker which, as the Adam Webster situation three years ago tells you, somebody at some stage will bid, that then can create a chain reaction of offers.
Returning to Scott, the teenager is under contract until 2025, has not once indicated that he would like a move away from City where his progress has been significant - signing his first professional deal just last March only to have 38 Championship appearances, 35 as a starter, under his belt 15 months later - and where he’s been provided so many opportunities to play.
However, the simple fact remains, while that is all strong currency for the Robins to hold, the simple cold hard cash that really matters is the amount of zeros any club chooses to offer for a player. It’s the same for Semenyo, and it will be the same for Scott or anyone else.
This week, football.london Tottenham correspondent Alasdair Gold revealed Spurs are very much monitoring Scott as a player “they really like”, while Football Insider went a small step further a few days later and outlined a “dossier” that has been compiled on the England Under-19 international [hopefully with a massive black pen mark through any kind of comparisons with Jack Grealish] with former manager David Pleat conducting background checks on his character, while Everton and Leicester City are also among the interested parties in the Channel Islander.
Tottenham, burnished with £150million as they enter the summer window from majority shareholder ENIC, will undoubtedly be very active in the market and although Scott doesn’t represent an immediate first-team option, could be a significant long-term option given his likely ceiling and just how transferable his game looks from Championship to elite level, even at the age of 18.
But, as Gold reported, and has been apparent in these early stages of the window, City are in a position to value Scott exceptionally high; they have the contract length and they have the player’s own attitude and understanding of the situation. He is still in the fertile stages of his career and why push for a move that could be detrimental? In the short-term at least.
Bristol Live understands two Premier League clubs asked the question in January of how much Scott could be priced at in the summer window and both responded with a sense that, for all his talent and potential, it seemed a little punchy.
For all your personal gripes about the Lansdown’s transfer policy, particularly under Mark Ashton, and how players were seemingly sold willy-nilly with thought or regard for the sporting health of the team, at base level they always secured good fees: Bobby Reid, Webster, Lloyd Kelly, Josh Brownhill (six months before a release clause kicked in), even the more peripheral members such as Mo Eisa and Sammie Szmodics went for something that constituted good value.
There are exceptions, Joe Bryan to an extent, plus Adam Nagy and Famara Diedhiou, but they were influenced by the crash of the transfer market below the Premier League which, in the case of the latter, coincided with the final 12 months of his contract.
In short, City can’t play hardball over Massengo, but can to an extent over Semenyo and even more so with Scott. They know not just his worth to Nigel Pearson’s team but to the club overall and how much that value could be, should he become a Premier League player.
From the perspective of Spurs and their fellow top-flight clubs, the Championship is becoming an increasingly fertile, reliable and economically-sensible land to farm in terms of talent, given the increasingly amount of players who have shown they can make the jump - Ollie Watkins, James Maddison, Jarrod Bowen, James Justin, Marc Guehi (following his loan at Swansea City), Ebere Eze, Nathan Collins, Webster, Brownhill - the poor financial health of lots of teams in the EFL and Brexit-related regulations complicating the arrival of the best talent from the continent.
Once upon a time the slightly more agricultural nature of the Championship limited how many players had the right profile and therefore could make the step into the Premier League. But with coaching levels enhanced, teams frequently playing academy talent and the overall standard of technical football increasing, it’s now a market that very much makes sense.
Fabio Carvalho (admittedly not a homegrown product) is already on his way to Liverpool, while Scott, Semenyo, Keane Lewis-Potter at Hull City, Middlesbrough’s Djed Spence via Nottingham Forest, his teammate at the City Ground Brennan Johnson, all appear bound for the Premier League at some stage over the next few years. Bournemouth trio Jaidon Anthony, Jordan Zemura and Kelly would be there if not for promotion with the Cherries, and plenty will follow. But it’s not just their raw talent, it’s the technical and tactical acumen that mark them out plus the ability to execute in applying that in a match situation.
That being said, there is only so much a team wants to spend on an unproven young talent who could take 2-3 seasons before he becomes a credible and consistent first-team option, and for a club of Tottenham’s size, they can be patient to a degree but the scope of that virtue is much smaller to an outfit like, say, Brighton & Hove Albion, who don’t have the same pressures for instant return on transfer investment.
Therefore what is desired for Scott is met with hesitancy. But there is another reason as well, something which could underpin the possibility of whether or not the Robins can keep the 18-year-old for at least another season in Ashton Gate.
The number of scouts in the upper tier of the Lansdown Stand has swelled significantly this term, despite City’s rather mediocre league position, but while some have been there specifically for Scott, his impressive and mature performances have come with a sizeable observational caveat.
Scott is a midfielder by trade, exactly what type we’re not 100 per cent sure yet although he seems to be destined to be a more dynamic No8 than a creative No10 as first thought. But, according to Whoscored, 14 of his appearances in this season were starting as a right wing-back.
It’s a role he has performed manfully in and regularly with real conviction, masking his inexperience not just in senior football but in a position he had never played in before. However, he’s not a right wing-back and there’s every chance the 2021/22 will be a total outlier in that regard when we come to review his career.
His future in the City team is understandably marked out in midfield. He can do a job out there, but it’s an emergency stop-gap, really. For Premier League clubs who have been watching Scott closely, it’s been increasingly hard to judge his capabilities through a midfield lens because, quite simply, he hasn’t played there enough to form a suitable sample size to justify paying £Xm.
By pure coincidence that is a bonus for City, in potentially retaining his services, but there is an event looming on the horizon that could remove all those asterisks and help underline his talent in what is his favoured position - the European Under-19 Championships.
Taking place in Slovakia, from June 18-July 1, Scott is a near-certainty to be included in Ian Foster's squad as England take on Israel, Austria and one other from a play-off group of the Netherlands, Ukraine, Norway and Serbia.
While City have mainly used Scott, even for the Under-23s, as an attacking No10 or a wing-back, in the England youth set-up he’s been as ball-carrying No6 or the up-and-down No8 we think he may well end up specialising in.
He will also be among mostly Premier League-level academy players - 17 of Foster's last 21-strong squad were drawn from England's top flight (Scott, Sheffield United's Daniel Jebbison, Ronnie Edwards of Peterborough United and Celtic goalkeeper Tobi Oluwayemi being the exceptions) - providing an obvious reference point as to where he stands among the best domestic talent of his age.
The tournament will be heavily attended by scouts and club representatives; every Premier League club will have a presence, as will plenty overseas, and it presents Scott and his younger teammates an arena to showcase their talents to such an audience.
Not that it is the aim, of course, but it cannot be ignored and for those clubs who have drawn up “dossiers” and compiled deep analysis of the 18-year-old, it could be the difference between picking up the phone and dialling Richard Gould offering somewhere close to what City want, or waiting another 6-12 months and seeing how he develops with another season in the Championship.
SIGN UP: For our daily Robins newsletter, bringing you the latest from Ashton Gate
