Chelsea moved quickly for inexperienced Mathis Amougou – but they'd tracked him for two years
Chelsea's final decision to sign Mathis Amougou had to be a quick one — but it was long in the making.
There were inevitable question marks when Chelsea bought the teenage midfielder from Saint-Etienne for a fee in the region of £12.5million ($15.5m) last week. Amougou has made just 19 professional appearances in his career and was only halfway through his first full season with the senior Saint-Etienne side.
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But while his experience at the highest level is limited, Chelsea have actually been scouting him for the past two years. This is an individual who has been capped for France from under-16 to under-20 level, so it is not a surprise he was on their radar given a key part of their modus operandi is finding young talent across the globe.
Significantly, Chelsea were not the only club following his progress, especially after he was voted the third-best player at the 2023 Under-17 World Cup. He made seven appearances, scoring two goals, including a late equaliser in the final against Germany. France ended up losing on penalties. Amougou followed that promise shown on the youth international stage by making another five appearances as France reached the final of the Under-19 European Championship last July. This time they lost 2-0 to Spain.
Bayer Leverkusen had seen enough to be convinced. The Bundesliga club tried, but failed, to sign him last summer. Other Champions League teams from across the top five European leagues were also beginning to make their interest known during the January transfer window after seeing him make 17 appearances in Ligue 1.
Up to this point, Chelsea had been erring towards waiting until the summer or next year to make their move to acquire Amougou. But in the final days before the deadline, the club opted to bring their plans forward to ensure they did not miss out to a rival.
This was not a player Saint-Etienne wanted to lose. Talks over extending his contract, which was expiring in 2026, were opened before Christmas, but no agreement was reached. When Chelsea showed they were prepared to pay the €15million asking price, it was just too good an offer to turn down, even though there was some understandable regret he would not be continuing his progress with them.
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Current head coach Eirik Horneland summed up the sentiment when asked about it by the media last week. He said, as reported by MaxiFoot: 'Am I disappointed to see Mathis Amougou leave? You can see it in two ways. We can note that we managed to develop a rather interesting player who has caught the eye of Chelsea, who does not hesitate to put a lot of money into promising young players.
'They had several meetings with Saint-Etienne. Chelsea has paid a fairly interesting amount to recruit him. Our strategy is of course to develop young players, but there will also come a time when we will have to sell them. Mathis was really interested in joining Chelsea and we can simply wish him good luck.'
Chelsea see Amougou as a No 6 they can develop. It is a position they place great importance on and one they want to find more depth for. Among those operating there for the under-21s, the club rate Kiano Dyer and Sam Rak-Sakyi highly but see Amougou and Dyer more akin to Romeo Lavia, who has made just 13 appearances since joining from Southampton for £53million 18 months ago due to injury.
As The Athletic reported, Amougou is being lined up to join Strasbourg on loan next season so he can get more regular first-team football. However, the benefit to joining Chelsea now is he can spend the next few months acclimatising to life at their base in Cobham and the style of play Chelsea use without too much pressure on his shoulders. The 19-year-old has already begun training with the first team under head coach Enzo Maresca and by adding him to the Conference League squad for the knockout phase, there is an expectation he will also get some minutes in the competition. Starts in the Premier League are certainly not on the immediate agenda.
So how good a player is he? Obviously, it is early days. Before joining Saint-Etienne's academy in 2021, he had played for a local French team, Entente Brie Est, near where he grew up, and Torcy, a club renowned for developing more than 50 professionals, including Paul Pogba. He was also enrolled in the nation's famous coaching centre at Clairefontaine.
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Former Saint-Etienne coach Olivier Dall'Oglio, who gave Amougou the majority of his senior Saint-Etienne appearances before being replaced by Horneland in December, was clearly an admirer.
Speaking about Amougou in one press conference earlier in the 2024-25 campaign, Dall'Oglio told OneFootball: 'Last season, he had a very difficult season with a lot of tournaments with the French team, his school certificate, his time with the pros — at 17, that's a lot. It's not easy.
'Today he can concentrate on football, he is a boy who can do something and I am counting on him. He also has to prove himself.'
There is obviously a small sample size of data for what he did in a Saint-Etienne shirt. The fact he is playing for a club that have been struggling against relegation all season naturally means his statistics are going to be affected. His profile on Fotmob, which compares his output to other midfielders in France, showed that in the 857 minutes Amougou had in Ligue 1, he ranks particularly highly for tackles won percentage per 90 minutes (71.4). He also averaged 1.3 interceptions and was dribbled past less than once a game (0.95). However, a lack of duels (45.7 per cent) and aerial duels won (20 per cent) highlights just two areas in need of improvement.
Franck Talluto, who currently covers the club for L'Equipe and has followed the club for 20 years, agrees he is a player with potential. But he has flagged the fact he is joining Chelsea much earlier in his development than other players to come out of Saint-Etienne, such as Kurt Zouma, Wesley Fofana and William Saliba.
'We didn't see a lot of him,' Talluto tells The Athletic. 'He wasn't helped by the fact the team is in trouble this season, so it has been harder for him to show what he can do. If you look at his statistics, even if he started the game, he would get around 40 touches a game, which is not enough (Fotmob shows an average of 45.9 per 90 minutes and that is in the bottom six per cent of midfielders). His move to Chelsea is early, he needs to play more matches, but there is definitely a player in there.
'In the first half of the season, he started games, but I think he needed one or two more seasons in France to improve his skills. That is where Strasbourg can help.'
No one at Chelsea is getting too carried away. They regard him very much as one for the future rather than the present. By giving Amougou an eight-year contract, he has plenty of time to make his mark.
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New York Times
an hour ago
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The margin of defeat meant he ranked 23rd out of 47, with the top 32 making it into the main tournament. His team included legends such as Ronaldo, Pele, Ruud Gullit, and Edwin van der Sar, as well as current players Kylian Mbappe, Neymar, Bruno Fernandes, and Raphael Varane. The team for tomorrows ECL — Oliver Provstgaard (@OliverPN_) April 30, 2021 Drawn in the upper bracket, Provstgaard beat the Netherlands' Lev 'Lev' Vinken, who currently represents the Eredivisie's Fortuna Sittard in EAFC. The 4-3 win, as per Esports Charts, ranked second in peak viewership for the knockout stages of the tournament. That victory set Provstgaard up for a revenge meeting with Altintop. This time, he won 6-5 to progress to the quarter-finals. A 4-1 aggregate victory (1-1 in the first leg and 3-0 in the second) over Abella followed. Advertisement '(Provstgaard) was a very skilful player, but in the last part of the season he raised his level a lot,' Abella said. Provstgaard put in another comprehensive display against Italy's Lucio 'HHezerS' Vecchione. He won each leg 2-0 to progress to the upper bracket final against the UK's Ethan 'EthxnH' Higgins, runner-up at the 2020 FIFA eClub World Cup. Provstgaard won 5-1 on aggregate to book his place in the grand final against Cacciapuoti, the winner of the lower bracket. Provstgaard edged the first leg 2-1 but Cacciapuoti scored first in the second leg. The Dane retook the lead in the second half after some incredible Neymar trickery and held the lead to win the tournament. Thanks for all the messages, appreciate it!🏆 GG's to @Er_Caccia98, world class player! Winning goal, twisting and turning with neymar — Oliver Provstgaard (@OliverPN_) May 29, 2021 'I knew he was the best in that tournament because I saw how he was playing against other players,' Cacciapuoti tells The Athletic. 'I clearly remember a goal he scored with Pele that was crazy considering it was in a final.' Having won the tournament on May 29, Provstgaard announced his exit from the arena via X. 'Now full focus on football again, so that was the FIFA season for me. I guess it was a good one,' he signed off. Not going to play the Playoffs this weekend, as I don't have the time. Now full focus on football again, so that was the FIFA season for me. I guess it was a good one🏆😂Hopefully @TheStrxngeRFIFA will appreciate it👁️ — Oliver Provstgaard (@OliverPN_) July 8, 2021 Provstgaard's return to action for Vejle was measured. Spanish centre-back Raul Albentosa, who had joined Vejle as a free agent in January, saw Provstgaard's potential immediately. 'The first thing (I thought) when I watched Oliver was, 'This guy is amazing. Why is he not playing in the first team?',' he told The Athletic. Advertisement Provstgaard did not feature in the Danish Superliga's regular season where Vejle finished second bottom after suffering 13 defeats in 22 games. He started three of their 10 relegation-round games, featuring alongside one or both of Albentosa and captain Denis Kolinger in central defence, as Vejle won three and drew four but were still relegated. Kolinger departed in July 2022 and Albentosa became captain and Provstgaard's mentor, with the duo now Vejle's first-choice centre-back pairing. 'Oliver has a lot of quality; left-footed, good with the head, but I (told him), 'You come play a little more aggressively'. We needed him, he enjoyed with us and learnt with me the aggressive part,' Albentosa recalls. Vejle kept 13 clean sheets in 32 matches across the regular season and promotion round to secure promotion. They also made the quarter-finals of the Danish cup. The 2023-24 season proved pivotal for Provstgaard. He played every league minute for Vejle, often with Albentosa, who missed only 190 minutes of action himself. Vejle finished 11th out of 12 teams in the regular season but won five of 10 relegation-round games to finish four points clear of the drop zone. That summer he captained Denmark's under-21s in their European Championship qualifiers. He led a team with Mika Biereth, William Osula, Filip Jorgensen, and Thomas Kristensen, all of whom currently play for clubs in Europe's top five leagues. 'Vejle has big history in Denmark but is fighting to not get relegated and he captained the national team — that is his personality. Normally, the captain is a player who plays in the first league in Germany, or Copenhagen or Brondby, but he played in Vejle and was the captain,' Albentosa explains. 'Oliver is the next great centre-back in the national team and it's possible also that he is the next captain.' The later months of the season brought a moment that would soon be looked back on with fondness. Advertisement Provstgaard was named the Superliga's young player of the month award for February. While receiving the award at Vejle's training facility, he wore a vintage Lazio jersey from the 1999-2000 season when Alessandro Nesta, Diego Simeone, Pavel Nedved, Sergio Conceicao, Roberto Mancini and Simone Inzaghi helped win the club's second and most recent scudetto. 'My father deserved credit for that. I had this shirt in his closet,' Provstgaard said earlier this year while speaking to Lazio Style Channel. Provstgaard was named one of Vejle's captains that summer after Albentosa's departure. He started and completed 16 of their first 17 league games but the team struggled, winning just once. Provstgaard impressed, though, and sealed a move to Lazio during the January transfer window. In the interview with Lazio Style Channel, he called it a 'dream come true,' adding that taking over the No 25 jersey – worn by Lazio's all-time top-scorer Ciro Immobile (207 goals in 340 matches) – was 'incredible'. 'He is a fan of Lazio and then he arrives in Lazio, it's crazy. The injury, playing in Vejle's second division, the first team, Denmark U21s, you join Lazio as a fan of the club — it's like when (Kylian) Mbappe went to Madrid!' Albentosa says. The early months of Provstgaard's Lazio journey have been on the bench. He came on in two Serie A matches for a total of 33 minutes and helped Lazio see out important 1-0 wins against Empoli (with 10 men) and Atalanta. One of his first actions against Empoli, playing at left-back, was to contest an aerial duel that left him on the deck with blood streaming down his face. Provstgaard finished the game with a bandaged forehead and a few important defensive interventions. Already a virtual Champions League winner, Albentosa believes Provstgaard has what it takes to play in the actual competition. 'When I speak with TV in the Danish league, I say he could play for Real Madrid, like (former Denmark midfielder) Thomas Gravesen did,' he says. 'You never know in football — but I think he is Champions League level.'
