Lyon’s academy is a hotbed of footballing talent. One of the most exciting talents to have emerged from Les Gones’ youth ranks over the past decade or so is 24-year-old attacking midfielder Houssem Aouar (175cm/5’9”, 70kg/154lbs), who debuted for Lyon’s senior side in 2016/17 but really cemented himself in the first team the following campaign, in 2017/18.
It was early in the 2018/19 season after the French giants drew 2-2 with EPL champions Manchester City in the UEFA Champions League group stages when Aouar received a major rub as Pep Guardiola labelled the Lyon playmaker “incredible”.
Almost two years later, Guardiola’s former assistant at Man City, Mikel Arteta, had taken the reins at City’s EPL rivals Arsenal, and The Gunners were reported to have been chasing Aouar’s signature, with Lyon said to have been demanding no less than €60m to part ways with the young Frenchman.
Aouar ultimately remained at the Groupama Stadium beyond that summer and the next. However, with less than 12 months now remaining on his contract and coming off the back of a slightly lower-profile campaign than he’d enjoyed in the 2020/21 campaign, the Lyon talent is one of five players who Peter Bosz wants to be rid of this summer, per L’Équipe, with Les Gones said to now be open to receiving just €15m for Aouar — a significant drop from their 2020 asking price.
After a bad campaign by their standards in their first season under former Ajax, Borussia Dortmund and Bayer Leverkusen boss Peter Bosz, it’s no surprise that Lyon are initiating a fire sale. But why is Pep-approved, one-time €60m-rated Aouar part of that fire sale? And why has his stock dropped so much of late, as clubs (with all due respect) from a tier lower in stature than the likes of Man City and Arsenal — Real Sociedad, Real Betis and Nice — are said to be leading the chase for the Lyon star?
In this tactical analysis and scout report, we aim to provide some answers to these questions, as well as an insight into who and what exactly Aouar is as a player through analysis of his time at Lyon, the different systems he’s played in and different roles he’s been utilised within those tactics and systems to highlight the key strengths and weaknesses of the exciting playmaker’s game.
Unless otherwise stated, all stats and data used in this scout report have come from Wyscout.
Under Bruno Génésio
The Lyon manager who handed Aouar his debut in 2016/17 — and the one he played under for his first two full seasons as a first-team squad member — was Bruno Génésio, currently the boss at Lyon’s Ligue 1 rivals Rennes, who finished four places above Les Gones in the French top-flight last term.
So, how did Génésio utilise Aouar in those first couple of seasons? Quite effectively, anyway, though in a slightly different role to the one we’ve become accustomed to seeing Aouar playing over the last few seasons.
Figure 1 tells us a lot about how Aouar’s role has evolved over his five seasons in senior football thus far. The chart on the left shows us how the Frenchman generally made significantly more passes to the final third in his first and second Ligue 1 campaigns than he did in any following seasons, while his number of passes to the penalty area has slightly increased over the last two seasons and his number of touches inside the box has also increased in that time.
Meanwhile, aligning with his increased number of touches inside the box per 90 and lower number of passes to the final third per 90 are his higher number of dribbles, progressive runs and offensive duels per 90, as indicated by the chart on the right.
