Angers Lose Goalkeeping Prospect as Chabot Nears Manchester City Move

SCO Angers are bracing themselves for another blow in goal. Max-Edgar Chabot, one of the club’s most promising academy products, has rejected his first professional contract and is closing in on a move to Manchester City, according to Le Parisien.

He is just 18. Angers had earmarked him as a long-term option. City see him as another high-upside addition to their goalkeeping stable.

For Angers, the timing could hardly be worse.

They have already watched Hervé Koffi slip through their fingers this summer. The Burkina Faso international impressed on loan from RC Lens last season, but the club were priced out of making the deal permanent. His performances had given Angers a reliable, dynamic presence between the posts; replacing that on a tight budget is never simple.

The response was pragmatic rather than romantic. Angers turned to experience, bringing in Anthony Lopes as a free agent after the end of his contract at FC Nantes. A safe pair of hands, a known quantity, but also a reminder that the club are constantly juggling finances and ambition.

Now comes the next twist.

Le Parisien report that, while nothing has been signed yet, Chabot is closing in on an agreement with Manchester City, with a deal potentially wrapped up in the coming days. The Premier League champions have built a reputation for hoovering up elite young talent from across Europe, and Chabot fits the profile: tall, technically sharp, and already tested in high-level youth football.

Chabot has been guarding the net for Angers’ U19 side and featured in the France U17 squad at last autumn’s U17 World Cup, a stage that often acts as a launchpad for Europe’s biggest clubs to move. City have clearly been watching.

For Angers, it is a familiar modern dilemma. Develop, polish, and then watch the biggest operators swoop in before a senior ball is kicked. For City, it is another calculated bet on a teenager they believe can grow in their system.

The signatures are still to come. But all the momentum now points in one direction: from Angers’ academy to Manchester City’s vast talent machine, with an 18-year-old goalkeeper at the heart of it.