Thank you for your responses. I checked his 7+ star players' stats and he has 10 with 20+ matches with the club (meaning: over 1 season) and only 3 with 16 matches or less (new players this season).
If he had 10 'scouts' at the start of the season then I'm struggling to see how he got drawn in a league where no one else has a similar team.
It certainly challenges the theory on here that your league draw is dependent on the average of the best 11 players.