Due to Mike Ashley’s significant underinvestment into the club, Newcastle United’s academy has been an area in which the new ownership has needed to put serious money into. In January we saw yet another example of this, when the club struck an initial deal with Manchester City for around one million euros (rising to three-and-a-half million pounds) to secure the services of eighteen year-old Alfie Harrison.
Harrison signed a two-and-a-half contract, with the club having an option to extend it by another year. This clearly highlights how the club believe he has a strong chance of progressing into the first-team in the short-term future.
The youngster is a left-footed midfielder who is really well suited to Newcastle’s left-sided “8” position; the one which recently, due to injuries, Sean Longstaff has been playing. He is great at contributing to goals, and bringing his team up the pitch with his progressive play. What is so great about him is that he fills a gap in our squad: ball-striking midfielders.
Harrison has nine goals and four assists in just nine matches so far in the U18 Premier League. He has also made three appearances in the “Premier League 2” (the U21 Premier League). From these games we can see some key strengths to his game:
BALL STRIKING AND SHOT SELECTION:
Harrison loves arriving in the left half-space and using his laces to drive the ball low and hard across-goal into the bottom-right corner. He does this often and has almost mastered this technique; scoring lots of his goals through this. It is important to also note his versatility in finishes. He likes to use toe-punts when in tight spaces to get his shots off early; a technique which is underused in my opinion. He also has great composure; being also capable of gentle and precise side-foot finishes. A typical Harrison finish:
“TECHNICAL EMPATHY” AND PASS SELECTION:
To briefly define “technical empathy”, it’s a relatively new term in the scouting world to describe…
Source link : https://www.nufcblog.co.uk/2024/03/19/the-next-big-thing-at-newcastle-united-alfie-harrison-scout-report/
Author : TomTalksToon
Publish date : 2024-03-19 19:05:30
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