Latest Posts

TESCO Plant Chef Mince Pies

Price: £2.15 for a box of 6 (06/09/2024)

Plant Chef is Tesco’s own brand of 100% plant-based meals and foods. I’m not sure why they felt the need to include mince pies in the Plant Chef range seeing as the other varieties of Tesco mince pies are also suitable for vegetarians. These ones do, nevertheless, go a little bit further by declaring themselves as vegan. There is, however, a caveat to that on the rear of the packaging where it says ‘not suitable for milk and egg allergy sufferers because these allergens are present in the environment‘. Make of that what you will. Presumably they are not present in sufficient amounts to compromise a vegan regime.

These mince pies are described as ‘fruity and crumbly’ on the box and the Plant Chef range claims to offer ‘crowd pleasing classics … with big, bold flavours that pack a tasty punch’. They are much lower in saturated fat and sugar than the Tesco Finest mince pies that I previously reviewed, so they aren’t quite as bad for you, but does that come at the expense of the taste?

Cold Taste Test

The pastry is simply not as good as most other mince pies on the market. It’s soft and somewhat stodgy and is probably the main deficiency of the product. The filling is more passable, although definitely not as flavoursome as some of the competition. The consistency is a bit too smooth for my liking, without enough small chunks in the mincemeat, but at least there’s a reasonable quantity of it.

Hot Taste Test

Given the texture of the pastry, these are mince pies that would really benefit from a stint in the oven to crisp them up. Microwave heating didn’t help on that front, but it did help to bring out the flavour of the mincemeat filling somewhat, making the pies much more palatable.

Verdict

Overall I was a bit disappointed by these Plant Chef mince pies. They are bland and underwhelming in comparison to other similarly priced pies and I doubt I’ll be buying them again, especially as they are considerably more expensive that Tesco’s standard mince pie offering. Maybe they have their niche in the vegan market, but vegetarians will find plenty of superior alternatives amongst the regular supermarket brands.

Nutrition

Typical values (per 100g):

  • Energy: 386 kcal
  • Fat: 14.7 g
  • Saturates: 4.8 g
  • Carbohydrate: 58.3 g
  • Of which sugars: 27.3 g
  • Fibre : 2.1 g
  • Protein: 4.1 g
  • Salt: 0.13 g

TESCO Finest All Butter Pastry Mince Pies

Price: £3.00 for a box of 6 (06/09/2024)

These TESCO Finest mince pies are described on the box as “rich, crumbly, all butter pastry packed with a delicious mix of plump vine fruits and glacé cherries. Infused with French brandy and ruby port, with a refreshing twist of lemon zest, tangerine oil and festive spices. Finished with a gentle dusting of sugar.”

This was my first mince pie of the 2024 festive season. As is customary, they began appearing on shop shelves in early September, bringing to an end a desolate seven months of mince pie deprivation. It was with great relief that I snapped some up at the earliest opportunity.

Vaunted as ‘rich and decadent‘, these pies sit at the very top of Tesco’s own brand mince pie range. Care is taken over the presentation, with an attractive snowflake pattern on the pastry lid, and the deep filling can be seen reaching right up to the lip of the case. There’s a generous sprinkling of sugar to top them off.

Cold Taste Test

I tried my first one cold, straight out of the box, which, for convenience, is how I eat most of my mince pies. The texture and consistency of the pastry is what can let a lot of mince pies down if you don’t oven heat them, but these were about as good as pie pastry can be in a straight-outta-the-box scenario.

As you would expect from a premium product, the filling was noticeably deeper than a typical mid-range mince pie, and it was satisfying moist and fruity. Some premium pies can tend to be overly pretentious with their ingredients, moving too far away from a traditional mincemeat taste, but there are no concerns on that front here.

Hot Taste Test

I’m the only regular mince pie eater in my household, so it’s rarely worth putting the oven on for them if I’m just having the one. However, I do find that they heat up fairly well in the Microwave. I usually give them 15 seconds at 750 W. The downside is that the pastry won’t crisp up nicely like it does in a conventional oven or air fryer, but the heat can intensify the flavours in the filling.

After letting it cool for a minute, because hot mincemeat can really burn your mouth, I dug in. The warm, sweet mincemeat was instantly pleasing to my palate as the luscious melange of raisin and citrus flavours filled my mouth. There was only the slightest hint of the aforementioned brandy and port, but overall the combination of ingredients was well balanced and gratifying.

Verdict

These are good mince pies and are worthy of their ‘finest’ status in the Tesco range. I’ll definitely be buying them again from time to time when I fancy something a little more sophisticated than a bog-standard mince pie.

At £3 a packet, they are a bit on the pricey side, which is why they will never replace the mid-range pies as my regular, day-to-day, go-to pies. However, they do have their place as an occasional treat.

Nutrition

Typical values (per 100g):

  • Energy: 380 kcal
  • Fat: 13.6 g
  • Saturates: 9.1 g
  • Carbohydrate: 59.9 g
  • Of which sugars: 36.3 g
  • Fibre : 1.4 g
  • Protein: 4.0 g
  • Salt: 0.27 g

Moussa Niakhaté – Player Profile

Moussa Niakhaté is a tall and imposing left-footed centre-back who signed for Lyon from Nottingham Forest for €31.9 million in July 2024. He was ostensibly brough in to replace Jake O’Brien, who was sold to Everton at around the same time.

Niakhaté was born into a family of Senegalese origin living near Lille in the north of France and he soon found his way onto the books of local giants LOSC as a member of their youth academy. However, after seven years at the club, he was released aged fifteen and spent the following two seasons trying his luck at nearby Wasquehal and Boulogne-sur-Mer.

Breakthrough at Valenciennes

Eventually he settled at Valenciennes in 2013 and earned his chance in the first team a year later, making his debut as an eighteen year old in a 0-3 home defeat to Dijon in Ligue 2 in October 2014. Niakhaté went on to accrue ten appearances across all competitions in that first season with the senior team and managed to establish himself as a regular starter early in the 2015-16 campaign.

Valenciennes manager Faruk Hadžibegić used the young Niakhaté primarily as a left-back during his time at the club, and it was during this period that he also got his first call-ups to the French national setup at Under-19 and Under-20 levels. His star was on the rise and in July 2017 he made the step up to Ligue 1 with a transfer to Metz, having made seventy-eight appearances and scored one goal for Valenciennes.

Tough times at Metz

Moussa Niakhaté’s association with Metz proved to be a baptism of fire to top-flight football for the promising young defender. He went straight into the first team as a left-sided centre-back alongside fellow Franco-Senegalese defender Fallou Diagne at the heart of the Metz defence. However, they struggled badly and were glued to the bottom of the table from week four of the season onwards, eventually finishing seven points adrift of anyone else and conceding the most goals in the division.

Despite the abysmal results and relegation, Niakhaté must have been doing some things right as he was saved from a return to Ligue 2 by German Bundesliga club FSV Mainz, who came in with a €6 million offer for him in summer 2018 and the promise of a five year contract. He jumped at the chance to try his luck across the border in Germany.

Maturing in Mainz

Now aged twenty-two, Niakhaté was drafted straight into the first team at Mainz and made his debut in the first game of the season, a 1-0 win at home to Stuttgart, during which he partnered club captain Stefan Bell at centre-back. Niakhaté barely missed a game over the next four seasons and went on to become the club vice-captain as Mainz finished consistently in mid-table in the Bundesliga.

During his time at Mainz, Moussa Niakhaté made his debut for the France Espoirs (U-21) team and picked up a total of eleven caps for them. Whilst in Germany, he also developed the knack of scoring the occasional goal, finding the net nine times in his 135 appearances for ‘Die Nullfünfer‘.

In the summer of 2022, Niakhaté moved on again to try his luck in another new country. This time the destination was England and the Premier League where he became one of twenty-seven new signings in an astonishing transfer splurge by newly promoted Nottingham Forest. The reported fee was around €10 million.

Frustrated at Forest

He enjoyed mixed fortunes at Forest in terms of playing time. His first season at the City Ground was blighted by injury. Having started the first two games of the season, he picked up a hamstring injury, which kept him out of action until March. He regained his place for the final twelve matches as Forest finished a creditable sixteenth in the table.

Niakhaté did manage more appearances in the 2023-24 season, although he was in and out of the line-up, starting only fifteen of their thirty-eight Premier League fixtures. He did, at least, score his first (and only) goal in English football in a 4-2 defeat to Aston Villa at Villa Park. Unfortunately he was dropped for the following seven matches, reappearing only for the final five games of the season, of which he started three.

Given that he wasn’t an automatic first choice at the club, it came as no surprise that Forest were willing to part with his services when Olympique Lyonnais came in with an offer at the end of the season. What was a surprise was the size of that offer. Lyon’s American owner John Textor stumped up €31.9 million for a player who was only valued at half that amount by the respected website Transfermarkt. It’ll be a tall order for Niakhaté to justify that fee, especially as Lyon were reportedly struggling to comply with financial fair play regulations at the time, but hopefully he can perform to the requisite level.

Switching to Senegal

Finally, a word on Moussa Niakhaté’s international career to date. He played his final match for the France Espoirs in June 2019 in a warm-up for the UEFA European U-21 Championships. He was included in the squad for the finals, but remained on the bench throughout the tournament as a France team including Houssem Aouar, Lucas Tousart, Jeff Reine-Adélaïde and Moussa Dembélé lost 4-1 to Spain in the semi-finals.

Three years later, with no sign of a call-up to the full French squad on the horizon, he made the decision to switch to Senegal and accept a call-up from their national team manager Aliou Cissé. His hamstring injury meant that he had to wait until March 2023 to make his debut as a late substitute in a 5-1 home win against Mozambique in Africa Cup of Nations qualifying. He made his first start in the return match a few days later, a 1-0 win for the Lions of Teranga away in Maputo.

Niakhaté was included in the Senegal squad for the Africa Cup of Nations finals in the Ivory Coast in January 2024 and unfortunately he proved to be the fall guy in the penalty shoot-out against the hosts in the Round of 16. He was the only player to miss his spot kick following a 1-1 draw which ended Senegal’s participation in the tournament.

Montrose v Motherwell

Scottish League Cup: Group G

Tuesday 16th July 2024

Motherwell of the Scottish Premiership travelled up to Angus to take on Montrose, who play two divisions beneath them in League One. The match was part of the second round of fixtures in Group G of the Scottish League Cup, which is currently known as the Premier Sports Cup following a sponsorship deal with a pay TV company. Motherwell were the early group leaders, having beaten Edinburgh City 3-0 at home the previous weekend whilst Montrose were losing 3-2 at Partick Thistle.

Fans queuing to enter Links Park for Montrose v Motherwell.
Fans queuing to enter Links Park for Montrose v Motherwell.

Links Park, the home of Montrose Football Club since 1887, can be found just to the east of the town centre, some 600m inland from the long, sandy North Sea beaches that are so enticing on a fine summer’s day. The stadium’s capacity of 4,936 includes 1,338 covered seats in the Bryan Keith Stand, which was constructed in the mid-1990’s, shortly after the eponymous Keith gained control of the club.

This wasn’t my first visit to Links Park, but it was the first time that I successfully managed to witness a football match there. My previous attempt, some ten years earlier, was abruptly thwarted just after I’d paid on the turnstile. Within seconds of entering the ground on a late summer’s Saturday afternoon, the PA system announced that the referee had decided to postpone the match due to high winds. I did at least get a free pie by way of compensation as they sought to find a home for all the hot food that had been prepared.

Montrose prepare to kick off against Motherwell.
Montrose prepare to kick off against Motherwell.

The stadium boasts a 3G artificial pitch, which sees plenty of use as it is shared by local non-league side Montrose Roselea and can also be hired out by the local community. My £12 match ticket (purchased in advance online) allowed access to all home sections of the ground, including the seating, so I opted for a spot in the main stand close to the home dugout.

Links Park as seen from the top of the Bryan Keith stand.
Links Park as seen from the top of the Bryan Keith stand.

Motherwell started the game well and enjoyed the lion’s share of the possession without creating many clear cut opportunities. Montrose defended resolutely but found it difficult to gain a foothold in the opposition half and it seemed only a matter of time until the visitors broke the deadlock.

When the goal came, it was courtesy of a set piece straight from the training ground. Motherwell won a corner on their left side and manager Stuart Kettlewell was heard shouting ‘number 1’ several times to the taker and to some of the players waiting inside the penalty box. The pre-planned routine worked a treat, with an in-swinging corner met at the near post by Irish centre-back Shane Blaney, who headed into the net past the helpless Cammy Gill in the Montrose goal.

The players leave the field at half time with Motherwell leading 1-0.
The players leave the field at half time with Motherwell leading 1-0.

The half time interval came with Motherwell a goal to the good and looking comfortable. I took the opportunity to spend fifteen minutes wandering around the ground to check out the view from some different perspectives. Phyllis’s Pie Hut was clearly popular amongst the home fans, with a sizeable queue of people waiting to taste her wares. It was formally renamed in honour of it’s long-standing custodian, Phyllis McLean, earlier this year to mark her 25 years of service.

Phyllis's Pie Hut did brisk business at half time.
Phyllis’s Pie Hut did brisk business at half time.

I would estimate that around 450 Motherwell fans made the 116 mile journey from North Lanarkshire to Angus, and the bulk of them occupied the end third of the main stand, with the remainder gathering behind the the goal at the eastern end of the ground. It was an impressive travelling support for a Tuesday evening and they were a vocal minority in the crowd of 1,036.

The Motherwell substitutes doing their half time rondos in front of the main stand at Links Park.
The Motherwell substitutes doing their half time rondos in front of the main stand at Links Park.

The second half initially followed a similar pattern to the first, but as it wore on, the home side started to get more and more into the game. It became a more open encounter with Montrose realising that they were capable of getting something out of it whilst Motherwell strove to quell any hopes of a comeback with a killer second goal.

A view from behind the goal in the home end at Links Park.
A view from behind the goal in the home end at Links Park.

It seemed as though Motherwell had done enough to take the three points until Montrose produced a spirited late rally. They had one effort cleared off the line with eight minutes to go and then, four minutes later, they conjured up an equaliser through Ali Shrive, who turned sharply inside the box and guided the ball just inside the far post.

The players watch the penalty shoot-out from the centre circle at Links Park.
The players watch the penalty shoot-out from the centre circle at Links Park.

A quirk of the Premier Sports Cup is that drawn matches go straight into a penalty shoot-out, with the winner getting a bonus point. Therefore, with the match ending 1-1, we were treated to the spectacle of a spot-kick contest. It took place in front of the away fans, and perhaps that made the difference as Motherwell players slotted home all five of their penalties with Montrose missing one to hand the visitors a 5-4 win.

A Motherwell player scores during the shoot-out in front of the away end.
A Motherwell player scores during the shoot-out in front of the away end.

All of which meant that it was close to 10:pm by the time we began to file out of the ground, musing on the rarity of an evening match going to penalties yet still finishing in broad daylight. That’s the beauty of summertime football in Scotland.

Elgin City v Hibernian

Scottish League Cup: Group C

Saturday 13th July 2024

Scottish League Two side Elgin City welcomed Hibernian of the Scottish Premiership to their historic Borough Briggs ground for the opening round of fixtures in the 2024 edition of the League Cup. It was an unseasonably cold ‘summer’s day’ in Moray and warm coats were in order for many of the spectators. There was even a smattering of woolly hats in evidence amongst the crowd. Thankfully, despite the heavy cloud cover, it stayed dry throughout.

Fans arriving at Borough Briggs
Fans arriving at Borough Briggs for Elgin City v Hibernian

Borough Briggs is a quaint little stadium situated just to the north-west of the city centre and easily walkable from the train station. It dates back to 1921 and retains a grassy bank at each end, with a small amount of uncovered concrete terracing behind the goals. The main stand has 478 seats and a covered terrace runs the length of the opposite side of the ground, allowing for a total capacity of 4,520. The site is overlooked from the south by a monument to the 5th Duke of Gordon, which dominates the Eglin skyline atop a small hill.

Elgin City players warming up on the pitch.
Elgin City players warming up on the pitch ahead of their Scottish League Cup Group C clash with Hibs.

Arriving in plenty of time for the 3pm kick off, I found a parking spot in a sizeable public car park conveniently situated a few meters down Boroughbriggs Road from the stadium at a very reasonable rate of £2 for the remainder of the afternoon. Having purchased my £16 ticket online a couple of days previously, I was able to bypass the queue of people paying on the gate and present my QR code for scanning at a turnstile dedicated to ticket holders. The seating area was long-since sold out, so I’d bought a standing ticket and opted for a spot close to the halfway line with a pillar to lean on underneath the terrace roof.

Elgin's Borough Briggs ground starts to fill up.
Elgin’s Borough Briggs ground starts to fill up with a bumper crowd of over 1,700.

I’d estimate that some 400-500 Hibs supporters had made the journey up from Edinburgh to see their club’s first competitive fixture under new manager David Gray. Gray is a former Manchester United youth teamer who went on to have a distinguished career as a player with Hibernian between 2014 and 2021. He’s had three spells as a caretaker manager at the club before finally landing the role on a permanent basis this summer, aged just 36.

Some fresh-faced Hibs ultras take their place in the away end.
Some fresh-faced Hibs ultras take their place in the away end.

A small band of youthful looking, self-styled ‘ultras’ took up residence behind the goal in the away end and provided a backing sound-track of drum beats to accompany the proceedings. The bulk of the visiting fans occupied the end third of the covered terrace that is segregated from the home section by a metal grill just to the right of my vantage point. They accounted for a sizeable proportion of the 1,788 crowd.

Elgin City and Hibs players contest the ball in midfield.
Elgin City and Hibs players contest the ball in midfield.

Elgin City were formed in 1893 and, for the majority of their existence, they competed in the Highland League. However, they gained Scottish Football League status in the year 2000 when they and Peterhead were incorporated into the fourth tier of the national league system. Elgin have remained at that level ever since and struggled last season, only avoiding the relegation play-off by four points. In contrast, Hibernian finished eighth out of twelve in the Scottish Premiership and the gulf in class was apparent from the early stages.

A rare attack for the home side.
The stony gaze of the 5th Duke of Gordon falls upon Borough Briggs as he contemplates a rare attack for the home side.

Hibs’ Dutch striker Dylan Vente opened the scoring in just the eighth minute with a tap-in following a low cross into the danger zone from the right. The visitors were largely in control thereafter and Elgin struggled to hold onto possession for long whenever they ventured into the opposition half. The second goal came just a minute before the interval when the same player struck again, this time heading in a cross from the left.

Yet another cross into the Elgin City box.
Hibs apply some second half pressure with yet another cross into the Elgin City box.

It was one-way traffic for most of the second half, with debutant centre-back Marvin Ekpiteta heading in a cross five minutes after the restart, having stayed forward following a corner. Australian international winger Martin Boyle added a fourth a few minutes later with a strong run and shot from the right flank before Vente rounded off the scoring with another header to complete his hat-trick. A comparatively uneventful final half hour saw Hibs keep their hosts at arm’s length to see out the 5-0 victory.

Full Time. Elgin City 0-5 Hibernian.
Full Time. Elgin City 0-5 Hibernian.

Elgin will rue the fact that four of the goals came from crosses, so there will be plenty of work for them to do on the training ground to address that deficiency ahead of their forthcoming fixtures. Both teams will go on to play Peterhead, Queen’s Park and Kelty Hearts in Group C, with Hibs strong favourites to top the table and progress to the knockout rounds. The best three runners-up from the eight groups will also qualify, but Elgin will require a rapid upturn in form if they are to challenge for one of those spots.

The only dampener to a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon came as I exited the ground, when one of the numerous local seagulls scored a direct hit to my bald patch with some particularly well aimed droppings as it swooped over the concourse. I was thankful that the washrooms were close at hand.

At the time of writing, match highlights were available on YouTube via the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU2seQkcgHk

Saïd Benrahma – Player Profile

Saïd Benrahma initially joined Lyon on loan from West Ham United in February 2024, but the move was made permanent the following summer after the winger impressed with three goals and four assists in his fifteen appearances during the second half of the season. The transfer fee was said to be something in the region of €14 million.

Playing primarily on the left side of the forward line, Benrahma settled in quickly at Lyon and linked up well with Alexandre Lacazette to help the club pull clear of the danger zone at the bottom of the Ligue 1 table and eventually qualify for the Europa League. He had become frustrated by a lack of playing time during his final few months at West Ham under David Moyes, and will be hoping to reignite his career as a regular starter in Pierre Sage’s Lyon outfit.

Growing up in Algeria and France

Benrahma was born in the small city of Aïn Témouchent in the north-west of Algeria, not far from the Mediterranean coast and the bustling port city of Oran. Sadly, Aïn Témouchent was devastated by an earthquake measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale in December 1999, when Benrahma was just four years old. Growing up in nearby Sidi Bel Abbès, a larger city once synonymous with the French Foreign Legion, young Saïd took his first steps in youth football with a small club named NRB Bethioua.

The Benrahma family emigrated to France when Saïd was eleven and he soon found himself a football club near his new home in the suburbs of Toulouse. By the age of sixteen, he was on the books of US Colomiers, one of the most prominent amateur clubs in the city. He started to catch the eye of visiting scouts with his performances there, and earned himself a move to Nice shortly before his eighteenth birthday in 2013.

First team opportunities few and far between

Initially playing in the reserve team in the Championnat de France Amateur, Benrahma was a regular goalscorer but he found first team opportunities hard to come by. He mustered a paltry eighteen appearances for the Nice senior team in his first three years at the club before a series of loan moves took him to Angers, Gazélec Ajaccio and Châteauroux, the latter two in Ligue 2. His twelve goals in 34 games for Châteauroux in the 2017-18 season was an impressive haul, but not enough to convince Nice to persevere with him and they sold him to Brentford for €1.7 million.

The twenty-three-year-old Benrahma made 38 appearances in The Championship for The Bees during his first season in west London, plus another seven in cup competitions, scoring eleven times as he quickly became a fan favourite. His numbers were even better the following season as Brentford narrowly missed out on promotion to the Premier League, losing 2-1 to Fulham after extra time in the play-off final.

Big-money move across London

By now, Benrahma had become hot property and West Ham moved to sign him on loan in October 2020, before paying around £25 million to make the move permanent the following January. He became an integral component of their first team squad over the following three seasons, playing primarily on the left wing or as an attacking midfielder. Following on from two impressive Premier League campaigns, the pinnacle of his West Ham career came during the 2022-23 season when they lifted the UEFA Europa Conference League title.

Benrahma scored some crucial goals as The Hammers progressed towards the final, including a penalty to give them a 2-1 win against AZ Alkmaar in the first leg of the semi. He repeated the trick in the final in Prague, where his 62nd minute spot kick conversion opened the scoring against Fiorentina in what would be a 2-1 win for the Londoners.

Stop-start career with Les Fennecs

To date, Saïd Benrahma has amassed twenty-eight caps for his native Algeria since making his debut in a friendly match against Senegal at the Stade du 5 Juillet in Algiers in October 2015. He came off the bench with twenty minutes to go and helped inspire a 1-0 victory courtesy of a goal from Yacine Brahimi nine minutes from full time.

Benrahma had to wait almost three and a half years before his next international appearance, and first start, in a 1-0 friendly win over Tunisia in March 2019. Injury forced him to miss that summer’s Africa Cup of Nations, but he’s been a fairly regular squad member since then. He scored his first goal for the national team during a 4-0 win in Djibouti in the qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup. His second and most recent international goal proved to be a the winner in a World Cup 2026 qualifying match against Uganda in Kampala in June 2024.

Orel Mangala – Player Profile

Orel Mangala is a Belgian international midfielder who joined Lyon from Nottingham Forest in the January transfer window of 2024. The move was initially a loan, but the French club have an option to make it permanent when the deal expires at the end of June 2024. It remains to be seen whether or not they will choose to do so, as Mangala hasn’t been a regular starter during his time with Lyon, but he has, nonetheless, made some important contributions.

Serial youth semi-finalist

Orel Mangala was born in Brussels, Belgium, to a family of Congolese descent. He was on the books of local giants Anderlecht in his teens and represented their Under-19 team in the UEFA Youth League, helping them reach the semi-finals in both 2015 and 2016.

By then, he had already been turning out for the Belgian national age group selections for several years, having made his debut for the Under-15s in 2013 and been a regular squad member ever since. He had a particularly busy year in 2015 when he was a key part of the Red Devils U17 team that made it to the UEFA European U-17 Championship semi-finals in Bulgaria, where they lost to eventual winners France on penalties.

Later that same year, he also went to the FIFA U17 World Cup in Chile, where Belgium again reached the semi-finals. This time they lost out to Mali, but did have the consolation of beating Mexico in the Third Place Play-off to pick up the bronze medals.

An early move abroad

Mangala went on loan to Borussia Dortmund in Germany for the 2016-17 season and turned out for their Under-19 team in the UEFA Youth League and A-Junioren-Bundesliga, which is split into three regional divisions. His Dortmund team won the Western division and went on to secure the national U-19 championship title in the play-offs, beating Bayern Munich on penalties in the final, although Mangala was suspended for that match, having been sent off in the semi-final second leg against Wolfsburg.

That summer, Anderlecht opted to cash in on their prospect and sold Mangala to VFB Stuttgart for €1.8 million. He went straight into the first team squad at VFB, but was primarily used as a substitute during his first season with the club as they finished seventh in the Bundesliga. Due to the strong competition for places in central midfield, Stuttgart decided to to send Orel Mangala out on loan for the 2018-19 season in order to gain experience as a regular starter at Hamburger SV in the 2. Bundesliga.

Gaining experience in the 2. Bundesliga

Mangala became a cornerstone of the Hamburg team that finished fourth in the 2. Bundesliga, just missing out on promotion, and also reached the semi-finals of the DFB Pokal, losing to RB Leipzig. He enhanced his reputation as a combative, tough-tackling, defensive midfielder during that campaign and was eagerly welcomed back to Stuttgart the following summer in the wake of their own relegation to the 2. Bundesliga.

Upon his return, the twenty-one year old Mangala quickly became established as an automatic first choice in the centre of the Stuttgart midfield as they bounced straight back to the top flight with a second place finish in the 2. Bundesliga in 2019-20. He only missed one of the first twenty-five games of the following season before a torn muscle prematurely ended his campaign in mid-March with Stuttgart safely in mid-table.

Stuttgart form earns an international call-up

2021-22 was to prove much more challenging for Stuttgart as they only narrowly avoided the relegation play-off thanks to a final day win against Köln. Mangala was again a consistent performer in midfield and was rewarded with his first full international cap for Belgium in a friendly against the Republic of Ireland at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin in March 2022. Manager Roberto Martínez summoned him from the bench to replace Arthur Theate in the 75th minute of a 2-2 draw.

Mangala got a few more minutes for Belgium as a substitute in a friendly against Burkina Faso three days later, but was then discarded by Martínez and didn’t feature in any further national team squads under the Spaniard’s tenure, thus missing out on the 2022 World Cup finals. The arrival of Italian Domenico Tedesco as Belgium manager in February 2023 saw Orel Mangala immediately restored to the squad and he has kept his place ever since, accumulating a total 14 caps. He’ll get his first taste of a major international tournament at Euro 2024 in Germany, where he’s part of a highly fancied Belgian selection.

A move to the Premier League

Meanwhile, in the summer of 2022, Mangala had moved to Nottingham Forest for a fee of €13 million, one of twenty-seven players signed that season by the newly promoted Premier League club. He managed to hold down a fairly regular first team spot in the face of stiff competition for places during his eighteen months at the City Ground as Forest toiled at the wrong end of the table.

However, Forest’s transfer policy had landed them in hot water with regards to the Premier League’s Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations and would ultimately lead to a points deduction before the end of the 2023-24 season. Therefore it became necessary to cash in on some of their bankable assets, so they happily accepted when Lyon made a sizeable offer to take Mangala on loan.

On loan to Lyon

Mangala’s Lyon debut came as a substitute in a 2-1 win at Montpellier in February and he then started the next three fixtures, scoring a crucial winner against Nice, before missing the next six matches. He made his return for the final four games of the Ligue 1 campaign and scored another priceless winner at Clermont Foot on the penultimate weekend. That match is the only occasion on which he played the full ninety minutes for Lyon during his initial loan, so he has yet to cement his place in the team, but he could be seen as a long-term replacement for Corentin Tolisso.

His goals played a large part in Lyon’s unlikely late surge into the Europa League qualification places and securing European football for then 2024-25 season means that Lyon are better placed financially to make his loan move permanent. Mangala is reportedly keen to extend his stay at Lyon, so there’s a decent chance that we could be seeing him in the club colours again after the summer.

Nemanja Matić – Player Profile

Serbian central midfielder Nemanja Matić signed for Olympique Lyonnais from Ligue 1 rivals Rennes for €2.6 million in the January 2024 transfer window. The thirty-five year old becomes the oldest player in the current Lyon squad and has joined on a two-and-a-half-year contract, taking him through to summer 2026.

Matić had only spent half a season at Rennes, having joined them from AS Roma in the summer of 2023. However, he was reportedly unhappy with the schooling arrangements for his children in the Breton capital and consequently pushed for an early departure. He was in the stands at the Groupama Stadium to witness Lyon’s 2-3 defeat to Rennes in late January and completed his transfer in the immediate aftermath of the match.

Saving Lyon’s Season

Matić was thrown straight into the Lyon starting XI the following weekend for the visit of Marseille, and his calming presence at the heart of the midfield prompted an instant upturn in Lyon’s fortunes. They secured a 1-0 victory over their bitter rivals in a hard-fought contest, which proved to be the start of a winning run that lifted the club out of the relegation zone and into mid-table.

A tactically and positionally disciplined defensive midfielder providing a protective screen in front of the defence was exactly what Lyon had been missing in the first half of the season. Matić may no longer possess the speed and energy of his peak years in the Premier League, but he has the experience and awareness to compensate.

A recurrent problem had been the bombardment of shots that Lyon were facing from around the edge of the box due to opposition players being given too much time and space in dangerous areas. Matić is adept at sniffing out danger and closing players down before they get into a shooting position. Furthermore, his composure and assuredness in possession and his expansive range of passing have helped Lyon transition more effectively from defence to attack.

Growing up in Serbia

Nemanja Matić was born in Šabac, a town of some 50,000 inhabitants in the west of Serbia. It sits on the right bank of the River Sava, which meanders its way downstream towards its confluence with the Danube in Belgrade, around 50 km to the east. Back in 1988, that was at the heart of the former Yugoslavia. However, as the country disintegrated in the bloody conflict of the early 1990’s, Šabac founds itself just 25 km from the border with Bosnia.

Growing up in the nearby village of Vrelo, Matić lived in the shadow of that war for almost a decade from the age of two onwards. Indeed, Vrelo was a target of the NATO bombing campaign of Spring 1999 as Matić approached his eleventh birthday, which was the motive behind his decision not to wear a poppy on Remembrance Day later in life.

Initially coached by his own father in the youth sections of FK Vrelo, the young Matić was on the books of various Serbian clubs before breaking through to make his senior debut at FK Kolubara during the 2006-07 season. Based in the southern suburbs of the capital, FK Kolubara were competing in the Serbian League Belgrade division, which is one of four divisions at the third tier of the Serbian football pyramid.

An early move abroad

However, after just a few months in the first team, Matić was scouted by Slovak club Košice and joined them permanently in January 2007. He quickly became an integral part of their line-up and spent two and a half seasons learning his trade in the Slovak Superliga, picking up a Slovak Cup winners medal in 2009. In 2008, he had been joined at the club by his younger brother, Uroš Matić, also a midfielder, but the two weren’t together for long as Nemanja was snapped up by Chelsea for €1.75m in August 2009.

The twenty-one year old Matić only made three appearances during that debut season for Chelsea as they won a domestic double under Italian manager Carlo Ancelotti. Therefore, he didn’t qualify for a Premier League winner’s medal, but he did pick up an FA Cup medal, having played 25 minutes as a substitute in the 5-0 win over Watford in the Third Round and being on the bench for the 1-0 win over Portsmouth in the final at Wembley.

His Chelsea debut had come in a 4-0 home win against Wolves in November 2009, where he replaced former Lyon star Florent Malouda in the 69th minute. His only other outing came in the final league game of the campaign, an 8-0 crushing of Wigan Athletic at Stamford Bridge in which he replaced Michael Ballack in the 70th minute.

Not yet ready for Chelsea

The following season, Nemanja Matić was loaned out to Vitesse Arnhem in the Dutch Eredivisie, where he soon established himself as a first team regular. He made twenty-nine appearances and scored two goals as he helped them avoid relegation by the skin of their teeth. By then, Chelsea had decided that Matić was surplus to requirements and they moved him on to Benfica in the summer of 2011 for a fee of €5 million.

It would cost José Mourinho five times that amount to re-sign him for Chelsea in January 2014 after two and a half years in the Portuguese capital. During that spell, Matić actually faced Chelsea in the UEFA Europa League final at the Amsterdam Arena in 2013. Unfortunately for him, Benfica were beaten 2-1 by his former, and future, employers but Matić had the consolation of being named as the Portuguese Primeira Liga Player of the Season at the end of that campaign.

Bossing it in the Premier League

The three and a half years that Matić spent back at Stamford Bridge between 2014 and 2017 were perhaps the best of his career. He picked up two Premier League titles and was in the PFA Team of the Year for 2014-15. Having been virtually ever-present in midfield for the Blues since his return to the club, it was somewhat surprising that they allowed him to leave in the summer of 2017 to link up with Mourinho again at rivals Manchester United for a fee of around £40 million.

Matić quickly established himself as a key component of the United midfield and the five years that he spent at Old Trafford is the longest period that he settled at one club during his itinerant career. He slotted into the team as a long-term replacement for Michael Carrick at a time when the Red Devils were struggling to forge a new identity in the post Fergie years. Unfortunately, despite some consistently solid individual performances, Matić was unable to help the team collect any silverware.

It was a case of so near yet so far on several occasions. He once again lost out to Chelsea in a final when United were beaten 1-0 by the Blues in the 2018 FA Cup decider and it was double disappointment that season as they also finished runners up in the Premier League. A similar thing happened in 2020-21 when, now under the stewardship of Ole Gunnar Solskjær, they again came second in the league and lost the UEFA Europa League final on penalties to Villareal.

Following in José’s footsteps

Matić’s final season at Old Trafford was underwhelming on all fronts as they limped to sixth place under interim boss Ralf Rangnick and he was allowed to depart on a free transfer in the summer. He was signed for a third time by José Mourinho, who was by now in charge of AS Roma.

Matić spent a single season in Italy, where he made fifty appearances across all competitions, helping Roma to a sixth place finish in Serie A and the quarter-finals of the Coppa Italia. It was, however, Roma’s European campaign that provided the most excitement as the club made it all the way to the UEFA Europa League final in Budapest, where they faced Sevilla. It represented a chance for Matić to make it third time lucky in that competition after his two previous final defeats, However, he was forced to settle for a runners-up medal once again following more penalty shoot-out heartbreak.

Nemanja Matić’s international career with Serbia spanned eleven years from 2008 to 2019, during which time he accumulated 48 caps and scored two goals. The highlight was the 2018 World Cup in Russia, where he played in all three matches as Serbia finished third in Group E behind Brazil and Switzerland.

Lucas Perri – Player Profile

Lucas Estella Perri is a Brazilian goalkeeper who signed for Olympique Lyonnais for €3.25 million from Botafogo in the January 2024 transfer window. Having recently turned twenty-six, he arrived in Lyon to initially serve as a back-up for long-term custodian Anthony Lopes, replacing erstwhile reserve goalkeeper Rémy Riou, who moved on to Paris FC.

Born in Campinas, São Paulo state, Perri spent his early years in the youth setup of local clubs Ponte Preta and São Paulo, before graduating to the São Paulo first team squad aged seventeen in 2015. However, for the next couple of years he continued to feature primarily for the youth teams and his senior appearances were restricted to the relatively minor Copa Paulista.

He notably won the U-20 Copa Libertadores in 2016, keeping a clean sheet in the final, a 1-0 win against Liverpool of Montevideo at the Estadio Defensores del Chaco in Asunción, Paraguay. He earned his first cap for the Brazil U-20 team the same year, saving a penalty in a 2-1 victory over Uruguay.

A long wait for first team chances

In January 2019, by now aged twenty-one, Perri was loaned to Crystal Palace for a six month period, but he never made the first team squad for the Eagles and returned to São Paulo at the end of the season. A few months after his homecoming, in December 2019, he made his first, and indeed only, Série A appearance for São Paulo in their final game of the season, a 2-1 away win at Centro Sportivo Alagoano.

A frustrating couple of years followed, during which Perri was on the fringes of the first team squad and only made a handful of sporadic appearances. His path to the starting eleven remained resolutely blocked by first choice goalkeeper Tiago Volpi and it became clear that he needed to look elsewhere to gain experience.

Successful stint in Série B

Salvation came in the shape of a move to Náutico, based in Recife in Pernambuco state. Perri was immediately installed as first choice goalkeeper at the north-eastern club and he soon helped them triumph in the Campeonato Pernambucano. He made a telling contribution in the final against Retrô, saving two penalties in the 4-2 shoot-out victory following a 1-1 draw.

Náutico’s Série B campaign didn’t go quite so well. They were in the thick of a relegation battle and wins were few and far between, although Perri himself earned plaudits for his personal performances. That was despite only keeping three clean sheets in twenty-two matches and picking up the only red card of his career to date. He impressed enough to catch the eye of Rio de Janeiro’s Botafogo, competing in Série A, and they paid São Paulo around €350,000 to cancel his loan to Náutico and sign him permanently in August 2022.

Finally hitting the big time

Lucas Perri was part of the Botafogo squad for the last fifteen games of their 2022 Série A campaign, but he spent most of them on the bench as understudy to Paraguayan goalkeeper Gatito Fernández. However, he did make four appearances and managed to keep three clean sheets in them as Botafogo finished eleventh in the table.

2023 was to become his big breakthrough season. He took over as first choice ‘keeper during Botafogo’s Taça Guanabara campaign (the first stage of the Carioca championship) and never looked back. April brought some silverware in the form of the Taça Rio, and Perri was then ever-present in the 2023 edition of Série A as Botafogo set the early pace at the top of the table before fading to finish fifth. He also earned his first call-ups to the full Brazil squad in the second half of the year, as a third choice ‘keeper behind Ederson and Alisson.

Lopes’ long-term successor?

Perri has earned a reputation as something of a penalty saving specialist and is also known for occasionally distributing the ball up-field by punching it boxing style over an impressive distance. He has a big physical presence, standing almost half a foot taller than Anthony Lopes, and he exudes confidence.

As Botafogo and Lyon are both part of the Eagle Football Holdings multi-club ownership group headed by American businessman John Textor, it was no surprise that they opted to redeploy Lucas Perri to Lyon as soon as the January transfer window opened. He will provide some much needed competition to Lopes for the number one spot and, being seven years Lopes’ junior, will expect to inherit the shirt from him in the future.

The cut price €3.25 million fee that Lyon paid was well below Perri’s market value, which was estimated to be upwards of €8 million at the time. An arrangement over the fee is one of the advantages of buying from a partner club, but Botafogo do have a 50% sell-on clause in the contract, so they stand to benefit if he is successful at Lyon and moves on in a big money deal.

Gift Orban – Player Profile

Gift Emmanuel Orban is a Nigerian striker who joined Olympique Lyonnais from Belgian club Gent for a fee of €12 million in the January transfer window of 2024. He made his Lyon debut later that month in a 3-2 defeat at home to Rennes. He came off the bench at half-time to replace Mahamadou Diawara with Lyon trailing 3-0 and helped his new team claw their way back into the game in the second half.

That performance earned Orban his first start in the following match, which was the ‘Olympico’ clash against Marseille at the Groupama Stadium. Playing on the left side of attack, he put in a good shift and caused the visitors a few problems before he was replaced by Malick Fofana with twenty minutes left to play, having helped set Lyon on the way to a hard-fought 1-0 win.

Gift Orban didn’t have to wait much longer to open his scoring account for ‘Les Gones’. He was handed another start three days later in a crucial Coupe de France Round of 16 tie against Lille, leading the line in place of Alexandre Lacazette, who was being rested. His big moment came in the 40th minute when he latched onto a through ball from Rayan Cherki to finish off a slick passing move with a cool dink over the out-coming goalkeeper. He proved to be a handful for the Lille defence until he was replaced by Lacazette mid-way through the second half of the 2-1 win and he looks like a very useful addition to Lyon’s roster of attacking options.

Scouted by Stabæk

Born in Benue State, in the eastern central region of Nigeria, Gift Orban was playing for Bison FC when he was spotted by representatives of Norwegian club Stabæk whilst playing in an amateur tournament. Aged nineteen, he was invited to spend the winter training with Stabæk, but he returned to his homeland upon the expiry of his visa. However, he had impressed enough people to convince them to make a formal move for him a few months later, in Spring 2022.

Orban was initially thrown into the club’s reserves, competing in the fourth tier of Norwegian football, but it was immediately apparent that he was too good for that level. They moved him up to the first team squad at the end of May and he hit the ground running. He scored or assisted in almost every game between then and the end of the season, finishing with 19 goals and seven assists in 24 games across all competitions. Despite having missed the first third of the season, he was joint top scorer in the OBOS-ligaen (Norway’s second division) and won the Young Player of the Year award. Stabæk finished second in the table and won promotion back to the top flight, thanks largely to Orban’s performances.

A Gift for Gent

Such was his impact in Norway that bigger clubs from around Europe started to take notice and Gent took the plunge in January 2023, shelling out €4.6 million for his services. Unfazed by the step up in standard, Gift Orban wasted no time in finding his feet at his new club. He scored a brace in his Jupiler Pro League debut at Westerlo (a 3-3 draw) and plundered fifteen goals in sixteen appearances during that second half of the season and play-offs, via which Gent qualified for the Europa Conference League.

However, it was his exploits in the 2022-23 Europa Conference League knock-out phase that made headlines around Europe. Three minutes after coming on against Qarabag in the Intermediate Stage 2nd Leg, he scored a goal to level the tie and then scored in the penalty shoot-out that saw Gent progress to the last 16. There they faced Basaksehir and, after a 1-1 draw at home, he went to Istanbul and scored the fastest ever hat-trick in UEFA club competitions, breaking Mo Salah’s record. His goals in the 31st, 32nd and 34th minutes were only three minutes and twenty-five seconds apart and set Gent on their way to a 4-1 win. Sadly they were knocked out by West Ham in the Quarter-Finals.

Moving on up

Orban wasn’t quite as prolific in the first half of the 2023-24 campaign with Gent. His rapidly burgeoning reputation meant that he was now a marked man and he only managed three goals in the Jupiler Pro League prior to his January move to Lyon. In mitigation, his numbers were adversely affected by the lack of playing time he was afforded in the league – he only started nine of Gent’s first twenty games as coach Hein Vanhaezebrouck rotated his squad to cope with the dual demands of domestic and European football.

On the European scene, Orban was consistently in the starting line-up and he scored a hat-trick against Pogon Szczecin in the Europa Conference League qualifiers and another triple against Breidablik in the group phase. His five goals helped Gent to second place in Group B made him joint top scorer in the 2023-24 Conference League group stage. These exploits contributed to his transfer value quadrupling in the space of twelve months at Gent, and Lyon moved to secure his signature amidst interest from a host of big clubs around Europe.