Rayan Aït-Nouri: A Bright Spark Amidst Difficulties for Wolverhampton Wanderers
A strong run inside the Chelsea half, dribbling his way inside from the left flank to get the better of Enzo Fernández and then Moisés Caicedo before setting up Matheus Cunha for an equalising goal at the Molineux earlier this season. That was how Rayan Aït-Nouri registered his first goal contribution this season and it has proven not to be a one-off as the Algerian left-back has now gone on to register four more goal contributions this season, proving to be one of the bright sparks in what has been a difficult season for Wolves so far.
Born in the Montreuil suburb of Paris, France, Aït-Nouri started his professional career at Angers in 2018 before moving to Wolverhampton Wanderers in 2020 on an initial season-long loan which was then made permanent a year later. The left-back has always shown a lot of promise for Wolves, immediately catching the eye right from his first season, having joined the club as a teenager.
At just the age of 23, he seems to have matured a lot into a proper modern day left-back, and in just 13 Premier League games he has already equaled his season’s best in terms of goals contribution across all competitions (five g/a) achieved in 2021/22 and 2023/24 across 21 and 38 total appearances respectively. Across the four seasons already spent in the Premier League, the 23-year-old always exhibited the potential of a top left-back.
The talent has always been evident in the way handled the ball and supported the attack with a very remarkable level of ball retention for a defender, being able to shield the ball in tight spaces and difficult situations. Hence, it comes as very little surprise that last season, only Matheus Cunha (2.0) made more successful dribbles per game than Aït-Nouri (1.9) in the Premier League in a Wolves team that boasted of some fine dribblers like Pedro Neto, Jean-Ricner Bellegarde, João Gomes amongst others.
And the Algerian international has continued in the same trajectory again this season with 1.6 successful dribbles per game which is only bettered by Cunha’s 1.8. So far this season, Aït-Nouri is currently on the trajectory of a proper maverick left-back, a player who could by means of sheer individual quality create something out of very little or nothing, that was what he did in just a piece of play against Chelsea, the same thing he did in another defeat against Brentford.
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He has so far shown that he could make a difference offensively with more assured finishing and decision making in the final third. Also, given his skill set and his eye-catching ability on the ball, Aït-Nouri is a very useful tactical weapon offensively, he is like a double-edged sword that can not only hold width as a traditional full-back with great ball carriage but can also invert into midfield in build-up and also occupy the half spaces in attack as he has got the ability to control closely and also evade markers at relative ease.
Hence, it comes as little wonder the fact that the left-back has already made 558 touches in the Premier League this season, more than any Wolves player, a pointer to his willingness to get on the ball in diverse situations. Rayan Aït-Nouri is pretty comfortable with the ball in any area of the pitch proving to be very important piece of how well and how bad Wolves play. Asides this fact, Aït-Nouri averages 0.9 key passes per game in the Premier League this season which is only bettered by Wolves’ most influential attacker, Matheus Cunha at 1.8.
There is still one aspect of Aït-Nouri’s game that is in my opinion quite underwhelming though. As a defender, the Wolves left-back should be defending a lot better than he currently is. His defending against pacy and tricky forwards when left in a 1v1 or isolation leaves a lot more to be desired. Aït-Nouri’s defensive performance in the the 6-2 loss against Chelsea was an insignia of shame for a defender from a defensive point of view.
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It was a fun-filled day for Chelsea’s right winger, Noni Madueke, who had a go at Ait-Nouri right from the first minute with the Algerian doing little or nothing to stop the Englishman from testing José Sá with a fierce shot to win a corner which led to the opening goal inside just two minutes.
Madueke went on to score three goals in that game all coming from very similar patterns of play and shot creating actions consecutively, and it is pretty much agreeable from a defensive standpoint that Aït-Nouri should have done better against his man. The 6-2 loss against Chelsea is just an example of how things have and could go bad for Aït-Nouri in games against top sides with top quality right wingers that revel at taking on the opposing full-back.
Just a game before that Chelsea game, Aït-Nouri’s opposing winger was Bukayo Saka. There was probably nothing so many top left-backs could do to stop the Arsenal man from delivering a pin point cross to the head of Kai Havertz for the opener but the defending for Arsenal’s second goal cried for more bite and aggression. Affording a player like Bukayo Saka so much time and space to cut in on his favoured left foot to pull the trigger inside your own box is a prime example of how not to defend at top level football.
It is however worth mentioning that at the age of 23, Rayan Aït-Nouri has already gained so much experience playing at a very top level and given his age, there is still a lot of room for improvement. He has not even reached his prime as a defender yet and in the meantime, Gary O’Neil to his credit is already doing what many top coaches would do to mask the weakness(es) of their most important players.
His decision to switch from a back four system of to a back three in the 2-1 loss against Man City looks like one that would favour Aït-Nouri in both the short term and the long term as it leaves behind him an extra defender which automatically masks the major weakness in his game (defending in isolation and defending transitions). This change of system further looks promising as it allows Aït-Nouri the freedom and license to be a weapon offensively and he is even more likely to do more numbers playing as a wing-back than as a full-back.
As it stands, the Algerian left-back possesses a skill set that is more suited to a wing-back than a full-back but a needed improvement for a player of his age can never be ruled out in the game. He is already being courted by some top clubs in and outside of England, per recent transfer reports and this shows the enormous potential he possesses as a modern day left-back.
By: Moe Adikwu / @Moe_Adikwu
Featured Image: @GabFoligno / Marc Atkins – Getty Images