Josh Neufville is a 24-year-old wide attacker, often played as right wingback for his current club AFC Wimbledon in the EFL League Two and is a key player in their usual 3-5-2 formation. Neufville began his career at Crawley Green FC, before moving into the Luton Town academy where he went on to represent their U-18, U21 and First team with a small number of appearances in the EFL trophy. He also completed several loans with Solihull Moors, Woking, Yeovil Town and Sutton United before making a free transfer to AFC Wimbledon in July 2023.
Neufville is a slim build standing at 1.83m tall and a very athletic profile, with great acceleration, pace and stamina using his longer stride to quickly eat up the ground, making several long-distance sprints to quickly join attacks often outpacing his marker. He currently possesses a good level of strength and intelligently gets his body across to maximise this ability, get ahead of his man both with the ball to shield from tackles, and without to get himself across to aid in reaching the ball ahead of his man.
On the ball Neufville is the wide outlet off the right, he’ll often play short passes inside before bursting down the line, using his strong physical qualities looking for the return pass. He’s a threat 1v1 especially in large areas of space, often lulls the defend in with small touches before dropping his shoulder and using his explosiveness from a stop and quick start to cut inside and out, not just gaining a yard but often attacking the byline, getting into the wide areas of the box before playing low driven and cutback crosses into others when narrow, and often aims for the far post with his albeit inconsistent aerial crossing when wide.
Neufville isn’t the most refined technically, he lacks consistency when passing with both feet, especially with his left foot, can ignore the chance to play forward passes down the line for over/ under lapping runs and shows some inconsistency with his first touch and accelerated possession touches being heavier than intended.
Neufville can try positive first time passes or flick forwards although the final ball is often inconsistent, despite this he is still capable of making quick touches before playing a pass inside through pressure to release an attacker after attracting a second defender and his 1v1 ability often means he glides past defenders to make the next pass/ action far easier.
Off the ball Neufville stays wide, shows awareness of space to hold his run and instead drop wider and deeper to receive the pass to create further space to attack in 1v1 situations. Despite physically being capable, Neufville shows far less want to track back as quickly as he gets forward, he currently lacks defensive awareness and can react slower than attackers to danger and again relies on his physical strengths to recover. Despite athleticism and good levels of jump reach he avoids aerial duals, and can be ball orientated when defending, moving towards the passer and losing awareness to track or screen the pass itself.
Overall Josh Neufville is an offensive wingback that thrives when attacking space from deep positions, he’s a constant wide outlet that although doesn’t look to attack the box from outside to in, will make runs towards the back post when the ball is on the far side and is a constant threat when attacking 1v1 situations. He shows versatility to play across both flanks as a wide attacker as well as a fullback and can generate power with driven strikes from the edge of the area.
With only a year left on his current contract with AFC Wimbledon I imagine Neufville has several clubs potentially looking to make the most of this situation. Despite technical inconsistencies, his sheer power, athleticism and relentless ability to attack in 1v1 situations is enough to move up the EFL and position dependent could play for a strong mid-table side in the EFL League One.
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