Samy Chouchane is a 21-year-old Tunisian midfielder, that’s represented his countries U21 side on 10 occasions scoring 1 goal and is currently on loan at Northampton Town in EFL League One from Brighton & Hove Albion. Where he’s getting his first real taste of first team football often operating as the single pivot in a 5-3-2 as well as part of a midfield two/ three in variations of the 4-4-2/ 4-3-3.
Chouchane has an average verging on smaller frame, standing at 1.8m tall with a lean build, he has a short burst of acceleration, good levels of agility and shows quick foot speed to shift the ball away from oncoming tacklers and open up space for a progressive pass. Despite these positives Chouchane is far from a strong physical player, his short burst of acceleration quickly drops over a distance where he can begin to look slow, he can also show a lack of intensity to get back and runners can easily pull away.
His lean build currently leaves a lot of room for improvement in terms of his upper body strength, where he can be disrupted when trying to protect the ball and be held off when attempting to win it back. Chouchane possesses a decent jump reach for his size especially when using momentum, but the lack of strength mentioned means he can easily be disrupted under physical strain when trying to challenge in the air.
Samy shows he can perform difficult technical actions albeit with some inconsistency which you’d expect from a young and currently inexperienced player. Despite the lack of upper body strength mentioned, he shows technique to use his arms and body to get across and protect the ball which will only become more effective as he looks to get stronger.
On the ball Samy shows a strong level of first touch and can bring the ball down using different parts of his body, he’s also very quick to open out on his first touch and then has the vision to quickly spot a progressive pass. He often plays short and medium distance ground passes through the lines from deeper positions to break the opposition press and shows further passing range when moving forward, where he can clip the ball over the defence accurately into the path of runners and shows ability to play accurate aerial crosses especially from the right half space into a single man target and low driven crosses from the byline.
Chouchane is a composed figure across the pitch especially when building from the back/ around pressure in his own third. He scans quickly often pre-touch to assess his options and then play off one and two touches, before passing and moving around the opposition press intelligently making up for a lack of explosiveness and ball carrying ability.
There can be some inconsistencies with his shorter passing, with the line occasionally being slightly off, a more basic sideways pass being slightly overhit, or a corner kick being comfortably hitting the first man but this being his first season in first team football and how he threads the ball into the final third shows potential for the player he can be.
Off the ball Samy continues his strong awareness of space and fast reactions to quickly drop into positions to receive both in front and behind the opposition attack to aid in the build-up, when playing as a more advanced central midfielder he will attack wider half spaces and can make decoy runs to drag the defender away from a more central attacker but doesn’t currently look to attack the box very often.
Defensively he quickly tries to jump and press to win the ball back aggressively but is currently very ball orientated in how he defends often moving forward when it would be better to hold his position. I noticed he consistently looks to try to tackle with his stronger right foot regardless of the angle of his approach, and he currently goes straight to win the ball often mistiming his challenge and makes little attempt to cover space meaning attackers can easily shift past and then have the physical advantage to continue to pull away.
Chouchane does show some ability to screen passes when deeper by scanning and adjusting albeit inconsistently, he reads the game well enough to make interceptions but will want to work on not trying to make an interception too early. He can get across to double up with his fullback but is currently poor in 1v1 situations and again is easily shifted past and lacks an ability to mirror attackers especially when trying to cover large areas of space due to being so ball focused.
Overall, despite some physical and defensive frailties, it’s key that Samy Chouchane is recently 21 years old, in his first full season as a first team player in a Northampton Town side that have struggled so far this season and has yet still shown potential.
I could see Samy moving to play for a top EFL Championship side with some chance of progressing to the standard of a team in the bottom half of a European top 5 league after a stepping stone type move, depending on how he improves physically to adapt to a quicker league, and with his contract coming to an end in June 2025 it may not be long before a new club takes a chance of Samy Chouchane’s potential.
Target Scouting 