Michah Mbick is an 18-year-old Striker and product of the Charlton academy who joined the club at U10 level, rising through the ranks and has made substitute appearances for the first team this season and last after an impressive goal scoring record across various age ranges, including scoring on his debut for the U18’s, U21’s and First Team.
Mbick is a strong physical striker, standing around 1.85m tall with broad shoulders and excellent upper body strength for his age. He’s athletic, with a strong jump reach, good levels of acceleration and has a powerful stride when opening his gate to attack space and press with intensity but can improve on his agility where at times he can look fairly heavy footed.
Despite inexperience at first team level, Mbick is already a handful for defenders, not only does he have the physical presence, but he also shows strong techniques to consistently battle against even the strongest of defenders. He’s quick to engage a stiff arm to fend off a challenge when dropping deeper, can engage his upper body and strong back to act as a shield to successfully protect the ball as he spins away from oncoming tackles, rolling the defender in and around the box on the first touch to be in a face forward situation for his next action.
Mbick is very capable in aerial duels due to his physical strengths mentioned but can currently be too intent on grappling/ backing into the defender, putting him at a disadvantage as they move into the duel and he often moves backwards or from a stand. He can also mistime his jump, going early again making it far easier for the defender. Despite this, when winning his duel, he’s shown capability to flick the ball onto runners going beyond and bringing the ball down on his chest instead, being strong enough to hold off the defender enough to not have to compete in the air.
Whilst clearly a physical handful and offering the potential for strong hold up play when quickly dropping deeper off the front line, he currently lacks the technical level to make the most of his prior hold up actions and is quite one footed.
His pass range is currently limited, he often tries short one and two touch lay offs with very mixed levels of execution, controls both on the first touch and when accelerating are often heavy or not close enough to be in control for a quicker next action, attempts to spin the defender can be interrupted by focusing more on the physical hold up than first touch and despite showing some ability to see a runner in behind and the positive intention, his attempts at through balls are often overhit.
Further experience at a first team level will only develop these technical issues and its key to mention he’s currently only made 6 appearances for the Charlton first team in League One and all of them have been off the bench.
Off the ball Mbick shows strong variations in his movement, he can drop deep or wide to drag his marker out and create space for others, showing strong awareness for someone of his experience. He can fake a move to drop deep before quickly changing direction and attacking the space in behind, often gets in between defenders to cause confusion of who should pick him up and can attack from the shadow of the last defender before changing direction to run across their path at crosses to get to the ball first.
Out of possession Mbick is a willing presser and as mentioned can quickly gain momentum and intensity when pressing from the front, he’s aware of his role in tracking back when playing off the left and is also defensively aware enough to understand when a man is out of possession and drops to cover for them, again mostly off the left side.
As it stands Mbick’s technical level is behind his physical prowess and off the ball movements but at only 18 there is significant strengths to his game and still plenty of time for him to develop technically. He looks more than capable of performing to a first team level within the EFL already and with Charlton successfully navigating their way through the playoffs this season, a loan back into League One or a strong League Two side could offer him more of a chance at first team football in 25/26.
Target Scouting 