Who is Mohamed-Ali Cho? The Liverpool transfer target that slipped through Everton’s fingers

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Ligue 1 star on the move? 

©IMAGO

Having spent €262.5 million on new players from the French top-flight, there’s little doubt that the Premier League has fewer favoured shopping destinations than Ligue 1. No other European league generated more income from selling players to England’s biggest clubs this season, which overtook Serie A and the Bundesliga to move top of the pile over the course of the last two transfer windows. And a quick glance at the back pages of the English newspapers would suggest that another spending spree is in store come the end of this current league campaign. 

According to multiple reports in England, Premier League sides are eyeing up a move for Nice forward Mohamed-Ali Cho in the summer transfer window. The 21-year-old talent, who currently has five goals and three assists in 25 games across all competitions for Nice this season, has been heavily linked with a move to Liverpool next season. And since the Anfield club are reportedly considering the sale or imminent departure of a number of high-profile stars in the summer, there’s every chance that a young prospect like Cho could be top of their shortlist for the forthcoming transfer window. So who is the young Ligue 1 talent and is he ready to make the move to Anfield?

Rumour

M. Cho

Right Winger

OGC Nice		?		Liverpool
Ligue 1				Premier League

From promising start to difficult spell in Spain 

Should Cho opt for a move to Liverpool, his new surroundings may in fact look a lot like the ones he was used to as a child. Although the winger was born and raised in the Parisian suburbs of Stains and played for Paris Saint-Germain’s youth academy at a young age, Cho made the move to Liverpool when he was nine due to his parents moving for work. As such, Cho ended up joining Everton’s academy and wore the blue of Liverpool’s cross-city rivals for four years before his parents opted for a return to France. The English club had attempted to keep Cho in Merseyside, but his mother and then agent opted against staying put in England. “Everton isn’t the project we are looking for,” Cho’s mother said at the time. And so he returned to France and joined Angers. 

Fortunately for Cho and his mother, it was a move that paid off dividends almost immediately as the young forward went from youth prospect to first team player in a matter of months at his new club. Cho was thrown into the Angers first team at the start of the 21/22 season and by December of that year had racked up more first team minutes than any other player in his age category in Ligue 1 and had quickly won the respect of his more senior team mates. “He has a good head; he works hard and listens to us,” defender and teammate Romain Thomas said at the time. The 33-year-old, who was almost twice as old as Cho at the time, added: “He has above average natural qualities; his physical strength and speed stand out.”

Indeed, Cho’s natural abilities led to him becoming the source of serious interest from some of Europe’s biggest clubs, including Tottenham, Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund. But the young forward instead opted for a move to Real Sociedad when the Spanish giants offered to pay €13m for his services in the summer of 2022. However, Cho’s start to life in the Basque country was severely hampered by a hamstring injury that ruled him out for seven of Sociedad’s first 14 league games, only for an ankle injury that he picked up on his first game back in the starting XI to then sideline him for a further eight league games. By the time Cho had returned to match fitness in March of 2023, his first team spot was lost and any prospects of forging a new career in LaLiga were all but gone. 

Bouncing back at Nice

Rather than waste his time in Spain, Cho once again returned to France in the hope of kicking his career back into action when Nice offered to sign the young winger for €10m in last year’s winter transfer window. However, Cho’s second spell in Ligue 1 hasn’t exactly gone as smoothly as his breakthrough at Angers three years earlier. “After his first six months in the second half of the 23/24 season, Cho was primarily used on the right wing under Nice head coach Francesco Farioli,” noted Transfermarkt’s Ligue 1 expert Ronan Caroff, when asked about Cho’s return to French football. “He’s proven to be more versatile since then under new Nice head coach Franck Haise, who has used the player on the other wing as well as up front as a striker. Statistically there’s nothing too crazy to write home about, but still he hadn’t been this consistent since his last season in Angers. So some could say the last months are promising.”

Indeed, in 17 league appearances in the second half of last season, Cho managed just one goal and three assists in Ligue 1. And while this season’s return of five goals and three assists in 25 appearances in all competitions is slightly better, the Nice forward is still very much a work in progress for the Ligue 1 side. As such, at this moment in time Cho seems to be trading largely on the vast amount of promise that was once tied to his name, rather than any outstanding performances that he has put in for Nice this season. Which may trouble Liverpool fans that had been hoping for a new signing that could hit the ground running in the Premier League next season. But a lot can change between now and the end of he season and perhaps Cho will once again show the promise that had Everton desperately trying to hold on to the young player.