Nice’s Khéphren Thuram has not completely enjoyed the 2023/24 he’d have envisioned and aimed for at the start of the campaign in terms of assist numbers as well as game time, with the 22-year-old Reggio Emilia-born France international having been sidelined with an injury for a period around the winter break.
Nevertheless, the exciting young midfielder remains “priceless” in the eyes of his club’s sporting director, Florent Ghisolfi, according to the Nice transfer specialist in a recent interview with Nice-Matin.
In that interview, Ghisolfi explained that Thuram remains one of Europe’s most creative central midfielders with excellent potential, and he views “the content of his matches” as having been satisfactory this term, beyond surface-level statistics.
The term “priceless” is an eye-catching one, given Nice held on for dear life in order to retain Thuram’s services beyond the summer transfer window, with the likes of EPL giants Liverpool said to have been circling with keen interest.
Still, the time may come in the future when Nice are tasked with replacing the midfielder — and when that time comes, Ghisolfi and his club’s recruitment department will need to have a plan in place to keep the squad as strong as possible, even without their “priceless” asset.
Similarly, for clubs interested in a player of Thuram’s profile, it’s clear that it’ll take a hefty fee in order to prise the man himself out of Allianz Riviera. Those clubs may need to have alternative options in mind despite the rare nature of the midfielder’s profile in case it proves impossible to get the 22-year-old midfielder’s signature on a contract to play in their kit.
In this recruitment analysis piece, we’ll put ourselves in Florent Ghisolfi’s shoes and provide some insight into three players we feel may have caught the Nice sporting director’s eye if he were drawing up a little list of players who have something of a similar profile to Khéphren Thuram using data, statistics and video analysis.
Firstly, it must be noted that, yes, Ghisolfi is right, and Thuram is a rare breed of footballer. Nevertheless, no player is completely irreplaceable, and we think the three players we’ve decided to highlight in this scout report all bear at least some of the characteristics that would be necessary to adequately perform Thuram’s role within Les Aiglons’ tactical setup without losing too much of what the France international brings.
So, let’s get on with it, then!
What would Ghisolfi do?
Firstly, if we’re putting ourselves in the shoes of Florent Ghisolfi, it may be worth briefly laying out what could be expected of the Nice transfer specialist.
Ghisolfi was recruited by Nice in October 2022 following a 2022 summer transfer window that was highly scrutinised in Alpes-Maritimes as being a bit scattergun and ultimately ineffective at strengthening the squad.
Prior to joining Nice, Ghisolfi was Lens’ sports coordinator and is highly praised for his contributions to Lens’ meteoric rise from Ligue 2 to the top half of Ligue 1. Ghisolfi is credited with playing a significant role in the recruitment that saw the likes of Jonathan Clauss (signed for free, sold for €7.5m), Seko Fofana (signed for €8.5m, sold for €25m), Loïc Badé (signed for free, sold for €17m) and Loïs Openda (signed for €15.39m, sold for €38.5m), to name a handful, all join Les Sang et Or and contribute to the club’s growth in a massive way both on the pitch and in the transfer fees they ultimately commanded on their departures.
Ghisolfi has signed plenty of promising youngsters with potential — like Badé — but has also signed players in their prime with less scope for resale. However, he’s clearly got an excellent eye for undervalued stars capable of quickly adapting to the squad and environment of his club, allowing them to show the best of themselves for enough time that they do become highly desirable assets — as was the case with Clauss and Fofana. As a result, we didn’t specifically look for youth in our search but also considered prime players with value.
Similarly, while Ghisolfi’s main area of expertise is, of course, France, he has found some excellent value in a variety of other markets. Each of the three players we’ve selected for this analysis piece is from a different set of search parameters as it pertains to region in order to provide three different options not in terms of profile but in terms of level and place of origin.
Khéphren Thuram
Furthermore, in order to understand why we’ve selected the three players we have, it’s also imperative to have an understanding of what Khéphren Thuram himself brings to the table. Let’s take a look at the profile of Nice’s desirable asset in this section of analysis.
Thuram is an attacking ‘8’ who offers Nice plenty of attributes both on and off the ball. However, he really stands out for his playmaking and ball-carrying abilities.
When compared to left central midfielders from Europe’s top-five leagues for the 2023/24 campaign, he ranks in the 89.9 percentile for dribbles, shining a light on how the 22-year-old is a high-volume dribbler, as well as the 80.7 percentile for shots per 90 which shows he’s also not afraid to have a pop at goal if possible.
Nice’s left central midfielder, who stands at an imposing 192cm/6’4”, also presents decent-to-good percentile ranks in all possession categories, including dangerous passing and progressive passing — two areas that represent Thuram’s roles both in driving his team forward into more dangerous positions from deep with his distribution and also, at other times, in putting the ball on a plate for his attackers to potentially convert.
Here we have Thuram’s career shot assist map for Nice to date. His sweet spot for chance creation is evidently the left half-space, where we can see the majority of his creative passes originating. Most of the time, his shot assists come from the edge of the final third, but as the figure above displays, he does also pose a threat when given time and space deeper, where he’ll also go to pick up the ball and make a problem of himself for the opposition at times.
Similarly, the majority of Thuram’s dribbles also originate in the left half-space on the edge of the final third, where he looks to drive forward into the penalty box, but we do also see plenty starting deeper, even inside Nice’s own half, where Thuram is also generally a reliable option.
So, all in all, Thuram is a physically imposing left central midfielder with very good ball-carrying and playmaking abilities who’s particularly active in the left half-space — an impressive and uncommon mix of attributes, especially when considering the 22-year-old’s physical traits.
Fabio Miretti, 20 years old, Juventus
The first of our three options comes from one of Europe’s top-five leagues. Again, Ghisolfi is mainly familiar with Ligue 1 from those five divisions but has dabbled in the others too, including Serie A, which is where Fabio Miretti of Juventus would come from. This would be a transfer somewhat resemblant of Seko Fofana to Lens when Ghisolfi’s side signed the midfielder from Serie A Udinese and Jérémie Boga to Ghisolfi’s Nice from Atalanta last summer.
Miretti hasn’t been a major part of Juventus’ first-team plans this season, as evidenced by the fact that he’s played just 35% of his club’s available minutes in the current season, as displayed above. This could be one thing that’d make a move from Juve to Nice attractive, provided the game time appeared more achievable at the Allianz Rivera.
Miretti doesn’t share Thuram’s stature; he would give Nice 12cm less in central midfield than Thuram, as the 20-year-old stands at 180cm/5’11”.
However, the Italy U21 international is a high volume dribbler from the left central midfield position capable of taking his team all the way into the danger zone, as his 95.8 percentile rank in dribbles per 90 and 92.4 percentile rank for touches inside the opposition’s box indicate.
Miretti’s ball progression map from 2023/24 highlights how his dribbles have been scattered around a fair bit, a result of his inconsistent place in the squad, which has seen him have to fill in on the right of central midfield on occasion, not just the left.
We can see that his dribbles tend to start a bit wider when he plays on the left and more centrally when he plays on the right, so I’d expect to find him drifting slightly wider to receive when playing at his most comfortable left central midfield position. From there, as mentioned, he’ll look to break through the opposition’s backline and carry into the box, which he’s proven fairly effective at this season, with a 51.79% dribble success rate.
With consistent game time at his preferred left central midfield position, we could expect to see even more from Miretti as a ball carrier and as a creator.
Though the Juventus man hasn’t made an actual assist in Serie A this term, he has generated 1.13 expected assists, with some effective set-pieces making a contribution to that number.
Despite inconsistent game time, Miretti ranks in the 76.23 percentile for dangerous passes per 90 this term, highlighting the natural creative nature of this young midfielder’s game.
So, when it comes to potentially undervalued left central midfielders with ball-carrying and chance creation tendencies from Europe’s top-five leagues, Miretti is undoubtedly one that warrants further analysis.
Ismaël Koné, 21 years old, Watford
Leaving Europe’s top-five leagues, we’re now going to investigate their respective second-tiers. Ghisolfi has not been afraid to dip into the second-tiers of Europe’s elite divisions and is fully aware of the quality they can possess, with the aforementioned Loïc Badé signing at Lens being completed. At the same time, Badé was contracted to Ligue 2 Le Havre, and Brice Samba made the move from Nottingham Forest to Lens the summer after he helped Forest earn promotion to the EPL from the EFL Championship.
Now, we’re taking Ghisolfi back into England’s second-tier, this time to Watford where he can find the exciting 21-year-old midfield talent of Ismaël Koné.
Canada international Koné joined Watford from CF Montréal in January 2023 for €8m; according to Transfermarkt, he’s currently valued at €11m and under contract until the summer of 2027.
However, the Hornets are not anywhere near challenging for Premier League promotion at the moment, as they languish in the bottom half of the Championship table at the time of writing. This may not be the level at which Koné envisions himself spending another season after the conclusion of this one; hence why, we feel he’s a name that should be tracked closely by those in Europe’s top-five leagues as we approach the summer transfer window.
At 188cm/6’2”, Koné doesn’t quite match Thuram’s height and physical presence but isn’t a long way off. Like the 22-year-old France international, Koné also excels as a ball carrier, frequently breaking lines and driving his team into the final third and/or opposition penalty box, as evidenced by his high percentile rank in dribbles per 90 and touches inside the opposition’s penalty box.
Looking at Koné’s ball progression map for the 2023/24 league season above, we can observe that the midfielder has completed his dribbles a little bit deeper and more centrally than Miretti of Juventus has, perhaps resembling the ball progression map of Nice’s Thuram a little bit more, especially with how the dribble locations are more concentrated on the left as well, with 21-year-old Koné pretty much nailing down the starting position at left central midfield for Watford.
One area Koné can still hone his game as an ‘8’ is his chance creation. The 21-year-old just ranks in the 45.8 percentile for dangerous passes per 90, which trails that of Thuram and Miretti by a significant margin.
Indeed, on the pitch, we don’t see the Watford man making the kinds of penetrating, defence-splitting passes that Thuram and Miretti would. Nevertheless, Koné is well able to pick up good positions to receive and act as a link player for team combinations. In this role, he has managed to generate 1.5 expected assists through making smart, if not unspectacular, passes in good positions on a regular basis.
Ismaël Koné is one of the most promising and effective young left central midfielders in Europe’s strongest second-tiers at the moment; he’ll still be in the second-tier come this summer, and if teams in Europe’s top-five leagues are looking for a quality, physically imposing ball-carrying central midfielder they could likely recruit without breaking the bank, the Canada international represents potential value.
Cameron Puertas, 25 years old, Royale Union Saint-Gilloise
Last but not least, we’re taking our final option from a top-tier division in Europe outside of the top-five leagues. This time, we’re heading to Belgium — where Ghisolfi has successfully shopped before, with attacker Loïs Openda being snapped up by Lens during the 39-year-old sporting director’s final season with Les Sang et Or for €15.39m from Club Brugge just one year before Lens sold him on for more than double that to RB Leipzig.
Openda also played a crucial role in Lens securing a second-place finish, just one point behind PSG, and UEFA Champions League qualification last season, so not a bad bit of business from Belgium, overall!
This potential signing would almost certainly also not be a bad addition to most squads in Europe’s top-five leagues: 25-year-old Cameron Puertas, who joined Royale Union Saint-Gilloise from Swiss Super League side Lausanne-Sport for just over €1m in January 2022.
Currently valued at €7m, Puertas has just over a year left to run on his USG contract, so this summer could be a decisive one as it pertains to his future.
When we take a look at his pizza chart above, we can immediately observe that the 25-year-old left central midfielder is a massive standout in all attacking areas when compared to peers at his level in his position.
A high-volume dribbler like all midfielders included in this scout report, Puertas likes to get quite wide when he receives and dribbles, drifting out from the centre of midfield to find space and look to penetrate the opposition’s defence.
Puertas has made a whopping 16 assists for USG in all competitions this term, generating 14.76 expected assists.
The former Switzerland youth international has completed the majority of his creative passes from the left half-space and slightly wider, though his set-piece delivery is another lethal weapon in his offensive arsenal.
At 178cm/5’10”, Puertas is the least physically imposing central midfielder in our analysis and would definitely represent a drop-off for Nice in this area when compared to Thuram. However, he’s not exactly ‘small’ in the grand scheme of things and may make up for what he lacks in physicality via his elite technical quality.
With his contract coming into its final year and coming off the back of a highly impressive season, Puertas certainly represents an interesting option for teams in Europe’s top-five leagues looking for a creative ‘8’ as we approach the 2024 summer transfer window.
Conclusion
To conclude this analysis, we hope this has provided some food for thought as it relates to Nice’s “priceless” central midfielder and the alternatives that may currently be on the table, especially for Les Aiglons themselves should they have to replace Thuram, with this analysis conducted through the eyes of their sporting director, Florent Ghisolfi.
We’d expect to see these players high on the lists of some top clubs this summer, so keep an eye out!
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