Rayan Aït-Nouri Scout Report At Wolves 2021/2022 – Why The Left-Back With ‘A Lot To Learn’ Is A Bargain At £9.5m

When a deal was struck for Wolves to bring in Rayan Aït-Nouri temporarily, concerns arose within certain scouting circles.

Here, we have a player with tremendous talent.

To that point, he had only made 23 Ligue 1 appearances.

He would have perhaps benefitted more from accumulating more minutes at Angers than playing a rotation role (if he were lucky) at Wolves behind Jonny Otto.

He earned himself more minutes than he probably had any right to expect, thanks to injuries ahead of him in the pecking order, but he grew into the season as it went on.

He impressed towards the latter stages of the season when Wolves were playing for mid-table mediocracy.

As a result, Wolves renegotiated their loan-to-buy offer of £18m to £9.5m, but the deal included a 50% sell-on clause for Angers.

In this scout report, we are going to unravel why this is still a bargain for Wolves.

In this tactical analysis, we will examine how he performed in his first season in the Premier League, explore why he could suit Bruno Lage’s tactics, and provide a forecast for his future.

Rayan Aït-Nouri Player profile

The France U21 international started his career at AS Val de Fontenay, a club in the fourth tier of French football—only ten minutes away from his hometown, Montreuil.

He made his way to Paris FC in 2014, having spent a couple of years with ASF Le Perreux beforehand, where he also played youth football for another two years with a more competitive side in Ligue 2.

Another two years passed before Aït-Nouri finally joined Angers SCO’s youth team, where he spent two years.

As of the 2018/19 campaign, Aït-Nouri was promoted to the first team, and it was in that season that he made his debut, coming on as a substitute against Paris Saint-Germain.

Two more appearances would follow that season before his breakthrough campaign a season later.

23 appearances and even more heads turned, Aït-Nouri eventually joined Wolves on loan, despite interest from Man City, Chelsea, and even Barcelona.

He would fair as well as anyone could expect of a 19-year-old fresh into the league.

Standing at 5’10” / 179cm, Aït-Nouri is about average for height when it comes to Premier League full-backs, but his style of play can be likened to Serie A full-back Theo Hernández.

They are both excellent ball carriers, and either player can underlap and overlap in attacking scenarios, with no particular preference for either method in the final third.

Aït-Nouri’s dribbling is his biggest strength, and now that he is a permanent member of the Wolves squad, he will need to boost his other attributes to a similar level.

Rayan Aït-Nouri dribbling ability

It is fair to say that Aït-Nouri’s most common tendency is to dribble with the ball, whether inside his half or approaching the final third, to create a goalscoring opportunity via his crossing.

It helped him to stand out in the French league, and it was the side of his game that caught the eye of Europe’s elite.