Thanks for joining me as we enter the third season in charge of Nantes, in our quest to lift the Ligue 1 trophy.
In todays update I cover July and August of 2025, looking at pre-season, the UEFA Europe League draw, along with a little more on our Nantes born and bred newgen.
PRE SEASON
Five games were scheduled before we faced OGC Nice in the Trophée des Champions, the French equivalent of the FA Community Shield.
You will be able to see from the above, we managed to win all five games, scoring 20 goals in the process, whilst only conceding two. However, this wasn’t the main headline from pre-season, looking at the granularity you will note that Pape Seck managed to score in every friendly. In fact, he scored seven goals in five games, which provided me with a problem, a good one at that.
As you can see from the above comparison Seck (Green) is lacking the presence which the Egyptian brings, making up with vision, and technical ability. Despite his goalscoring form, ideally I want to keep both on the pitch.
However, when comparing Seck to our current Attacking Midfielder, Enzo Le Fée, the youngster is much more closely aligned. Making me believe he should be looking to operate more as a ‘creator’ than a ‘finisher’. So I will opt to change his player role from ‘Advanced Forward’ to a ‘False 9’ or ‘Trequartista’ when playing as the spearhead moving forward.
AUGUST 2025
Continuing with the theme of Pape Seck, the striker/attacking midfielder (can’t for the life of me figure out where he will play) ensured the media attention was all about him. Despite losing the Trophée des Champions on penalties to OGC Nice, Seck ensured his senior debut ended up with him on the scoresheet.
This goal seen the youngster become the youngest ever goal scorer for the club, wiping Billel Amara out of the history books, being 133 days younger than the promising inside forward (now loaned out to Ligue 1 AC Ajaccio).
However, it didn’t stop there! Three games later Seck wrote himself into Ligue 1 history, becoming the leagues youngest ever goal scorer with his goal against Lorient. Again, he cleared the previous holder Federico Fernandez by 30 days.
If breaking those two records wasn’t enough, the youngsters performance against Rennes was enough to continue to build the noise surrounding his hype. To score a brace in your first fixture against your local rivals is surely enough to send France’s northernmost region into a frenzy. Looking at his accompanying chalkboard, you will see how central the advanced forward operates, again similarly to Mostafa Mohamed the two touches in the box (six yard) result in goals.
Four games in, not too much to report on with regards to the league table, other than look at OGC Nice, not what you’d call the perfect start for the side which are looking to retain their crown.
Above a flavour of our best performers, Moses Simon well on his way to beat his highest assists (8) after the opening four games. Whilst Kylian Mbappé continues to do what he does best.
UEFA EUROPA LEAGUE
The draw for the UEFA Europa League has been made, we are presented with some spicy opponents, Manchester United, and Juventus the highest ranked. However, I am looking forward to the fixture in Slovenia, to play SK Slovan Bratislava, as the Tehelné pole stadium is one which has always caught my eye.
FYI I have a little bit of an obsession with Stadia, and architecture.
FORWARD LOOK
Five from five surely!
au revoir!
