It’s almost 2 years ago since we asked How’s Thierry Small getting on with the Saints? Things have moved on considerably since then, with the 19-year-old now into his second month of a short-term contract at Charlton Athletic.
Small became the Toffees’ youngest senior player when Carlo Ancelotti gave him his first-team debut in a 2021 FA Cup tie against Sheffield Wednesday, aged 16 years and 176 days.
But that was not enough to persuade the then 17-year-old defender to sign a very generous 3-year professional contract with the Blues, ending 6 years with the Academy when he ripped up his scholarship agreement and secured a somewhat acrimonious move to the South Coast, with Everton rejecting Southampton’s £1.5M initial offer of a development fee.
The highly rated young left-back was expected to sign his first professional contract with Everton when he turned 17 on 1 August 2021, but had made it known that he felt his advancement would be stalled with Lucas Digne and Niels Nkounkou ahead of him at that time.
“It was unbelievable for me and my family,” Small told London News Online. “When I moved to Everton I was in digs. I made a lot of sacrifices to be there. I left home at an early age.
“So when I was on the pitch it was like: ‘We have achieved something really great – we beat the statistics (for the amount of academy player who fall by the wayside)’. It was beautiful to experience.
“It was my first year in full-time football. I had just finished school and went straight into a scholarship – everything was brand new to me.
“I was grateful to be playing football and getting your little scholar wages. I was just made up. Everything happened so quickly – but I wouldn’t have had it any way differently.”
“The way Everton was, I wish I could’ve left on better terms,” said Small. “The way it came out wasn’t completely true – there was a lot of false speculation about the move to Southampton.”
It seems things just didn’t pan out as hoped for, with the young Everton Academy prodigy notching up only 45 minutes for the Southampton first team before they all agreed to rip up his contract, which allowed him to join Charlton Athletic in League One as a free agent at the end of the recent transfer window.
“Going there was just a family decision to better my career. You have got to take risks – sometimes they pay off and sometimes they don’t, it’s just part of life.
“It was a good experience, in terms of being around the first-team environment at 17. I don’t think a lot of players would’ve been doing that at my age, so the experience of just that alone was unbelievable.
“It’s hard to adapt because I was new to first-team football. I went from being a scholar straight into a first-team environment in the Premier League. Transition-wise it was a little hard for me mentally to get used to that, it took a bit of a while.
“But then you have a few loans and develop, it’s a natural part of the game – you grow, not just as a player but also as a person.”
Small ended up having lengthy loan spells at Port Vale and St Mirren, joining the latter for the second half of last season and then again in August. But the signs are he may now have found his level, having played every minute of the Addicks’ last seven games in League One.
“I’ve been really enjoying my football and I really love being in London,” Small told the South London Press. “The Charlton fans are amazing. and it is a brilliant changing room to be part of.
“I’m not on the social media platforms, apart from Instagram, but a few of my friends are – it’s beautiful to get the love and be appreciated early on.
“It’s a good achievement. I hope we have many more good times and positive times.
“I’m not getting too ahead of myself. It’s still really early days in my short time here – but it couldn’t have gone any better so far.
“I need to stay level-headed, try my best in every game and put 100 per cent into everything I do. That’s the bare minimum. You’re going to see the work ethic and hard work – that should be expected of everyone.
“I’ll be honest, they’ve only seen a little bit of what I’m capable of. I feel with more experience and working under the manager, that I can reach some higher levels in my game.”
Charlton Athletic have an option to extend Thierry Small’s contract until the end of the 2024-25 season – with manager Nathan Jones saying that he has been very happy with the defender’s impact.