Alex Scott sat in the stands at the Robins High Performance last week to take in Bristol City Under-23s draw with Cardiff City, and although he watched the full game with near constant focus he may have afforded himself a brief moment to consider how quickly his situation has transformed to put himself as casual observer and not battling for attention.
Twelve months ago, Scott was starting for the U23s in a 4-3 victory over Charlton Athletic, and although, of that group, Ayman Benarous has made a first-team breakthrough and Josh Owers appears to be knocking on the door, Scott’s acceleration has been so rapid but also so seamless, it’s almost overlooked.
Only four players in the Robins squad have made more starts than the 18-year-old’s 20 in the Championship this season - Andi Weimann, Chris Martin, Tomas Kalas and Dan Bentley, all senior pros in their late 20s and 30s - less than a year after he was signing his first professional deal at Ashton Gate.
He’s played four different positions - No10, right-sided attacking midfield, right wing-back and in a deeper midfield role - and the amount of bad performances can be counted in single digits, and even then you’re being pernickety.
For all his undeniable ability on the ball, the way he seems to glide across the field and the technical class at which he carries possession with such technical excellence, his head eternal on a swivel, simultaneously looking for danger and the next passing option, the one attribute that Nigel Pearson has continually championed has been his maturity.
“He’s a bright footballer and he’s not just got the technical ability he's got the awareness to play in different places and I think this is the key factor to it, he's adaptable because he understands that the team needs something rather than, it's just about him,” Pearson said last month.
“The fact that we've asked him to play in different roles and he's been able to deliver in all of those roles really, is testament to his ability and mental approach to those tasks that he's given. I think that is a sign of a really good player, intelligent player and as importantly, a really good character.”
That maturity and mental strength isn’t just evidenced by the way he plays in a tangible sense but also how his season has progressed as a setback in mid-September could easily had led to a regression in that moment but instead seemed to propel him further forward.
Stationed in almost a right-wing role against Luton Town, Scott was substituted after just 37 minutes, with Pearson later explaining the position simply, “wasn’t working for him”.
The logical next step to that, at least normally for players at his stage of development, was for the teenager to spend a significant period out of the team, perhaps even returning to the 23s, instead he then found a niche back into the line-up at wing-back and now in what we believe to be his preferred central midfield role.
Unsurprisingly Scott was featured on Sky Sports’ '21 for 21' last Friday as hosts George Elek and Ali Maxwell from the Not The Top 20 Podcast outlined the 21 best talents under the age of 21 in the EFL.
In the footage and discussion that formed Scott’s section, the overall takeaway was just how accomplished he looks in the Championship environment, with performances befitting of a professional 200 games, not 20, deep into his career.
Of City’s young crop, he doesn’t possess the explosiveness of Antoine Semenyo, the eye-catching energy of Han-Noah Massengo or the line-breaking skill of Benarous, but is the most rounded in terms of his skillset of that quartet, even if he’s comfortably third in the experience stakes.
In many ways the ‘Guernsey Grealish’ nickname he’s now been lumbered with is a misnomer, outside of the way he wears his socks and the aesthetics of the way he carries the ball in possession.
There is a restraint in the way Scott plays, not that he’s holding himself back but, in picking up on Pearson’s theme, he understands his role and responsibilities within the team and isn’t trying to do things as an individual.
Such is his technical ability, he could be trying to force the issue at any given moment, and really turn heads, but there’s a sensible subtlety to what he does, an almost artful simplicity and that catches the attention in a scouting sense, perhaps more so than an outrageous dribble or attempt from distance.
The secret, if there ever really was one, is out - if it could ever really be contained - and the reports on Monday that Everton and Leicester City are watching the midfielder shouldn’t come as a huge surprise, and City fans are going to have to get used to these stories between now and the end of the season.
If anything, and if you were being particularly cynical about digital journalism, you could take the scouting pool at any given City game and get more than five stories out of the same subject, such is the volume of clubs watching the Robins young talent; for Everton and Leicester City this week, read Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal the next. It's a game that everyone can play, really. All “joining the race” for City’s bright talent.
Lee Johnson once quipped about Lloyd Kelly that if you were a Premier League club not looking at the then-City defender you weren’t doing your recruitment right - a comment he was castigated for in some quarters given previous hasty reservations about the defender - but the same is true of Scott.
If a Premier League club hasn’t entrusted a scout with getting eyes on the No36 at least once, who exactly are they watching.
An English midfielder increasingly capable of doing it all, positionally and tactically flexible, still only in his first year of being a professional, who’s humble, grounded and possess an impressive football IQ whose ceiling is potentially very high, indeed; Pearson has predicted, without wanting to burden him with too much expectation, that he will play for England one day.
From City’s perspective this summer will bring many decisions over a number of players, especially Scott, Massengo and Semenyo of which there are numerous moving parts and scenarios that may or may not develop to determine where their futures lie.
It is largely impossible to forecast at this stage, with Massengo’s contract situation the only definitive signpost as to what will transpire, one way or the other.
Scott’s agreement has him under contract until 2025 but, really, that sense of protection is academic given his salary against the potential of what could be earned at Premier League level.
Admittedly it doesn’t force the question as much as it does Massengo who, quite simply, will have to be sold this summer if he doesn’t sign fresh terms; any other position doesn’t make financial sense.
And perhaps it's Scott who will therefore eventually become the banner player as to evidence of City's "ambition" (a harsh term given the accelerated financial challenges Richard Gould is having to operate in), more so than Massengo given the above and Semenyo, because Premier League interest has seemed a constant murmur throughout his development.
Let's not kid ourselves, the question will be asked by at least one top-flight club at some stage over the next transfer window, potentially even before.
As to what City's answer will be, it's tough to predict. Much like how swiftly Scott has become subject of these sort of conversations.
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