The traditional 'he didn't make it after City, so he was no good' comment.

Neville Kneville

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This has cropped up in a discussion or two, again, recently & has done for many years, along with several other similar ones, so I thought I'd throw them together in here.

1) The idea, that if we, or any other club, let a player go, & he ends up in the lower leagues, or nowhere in particular, it's proof that he would never have made it.

There is also: 'if he didn't do it on loan at.... then he'd never make it here'


And: ''ah he's alright in Scotland, but, he'll never make it here'

Well it's just not true imo. Each case is not the same as the next & players 'not making it' is not necessarily because they weren't talented enough, it can just be that things didn't happen for them, at the right time, or they didn't get the right break.

And I'll give this comment from a piece I read today, which I thought was a perfect example:

One of the top players in the Premier League will tell you all about the difficulties of making it at St Mirren. Sportsmail revealed in December how Leicester City’s Riyad Mahrez had sought a breakthrough at the club, got nowhere near the team, and borrowed a bike to retrieve his boots from the training ground, ahead of a moonlit flit.

‘Ah yes, I heard about Riyah and the bike,’ grins Mooy, and though he did get his chance at the Paisley club, he can relate to Mahrez’s recollections of the bitterly cold climate. Boxing Day 2010 saw Mooy on an eight-hour round trip by coach to face Inverness Caledonian Thistle in the Scottish Premier. He was a non-playing substitute in a 2-1 win.

‘Tough times but it was good and it makes you stronger,’ he reflects, though ten starts in two seasons hardly represented the breakthrough he was looking for.

He returned to Australia two years later and in the depths of winter 2015, with hopes of a European breakthrough fast diminishing, he was extremely close to taking SaudiArabian riches and signing for Al-Nassr. They were offering more than $2 million - the greatest sum ever spent on a player based in Australia.

‘I really was thinking about it because I was 25 and you start to think are you ever going to get another chance to go to Europe?’ he reflects.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...ds-Aaron-Mooy-living-dream.html#ixzz55weOdAgX

Two current Premier League players, both at St Mirren, couldn't get in their team. One of them, we offered over 50 million quid for.

Yet if we send a 17 year old kid there tomorrow, & he doesn't play, most will see it as 'proof' he isn't good enough & quote it on here.
 
Good thread Nev. I think the biggest problem we have is that people presume player A is destined to be great one way or another. They think a player is destined to the top and will follow a linear path of progression regardless and reach his potential. It totally doesn't work that way. They're human and they're affected by a vast array of societal and pschological factors just like the rest of us. I'd expect Foden wouldn't have a fucking clue for St Mirren. Does that mean he's shite? Course it doesn't. You can't put some potentially genius level kid into a team with a bunch of cloggers and expect them to blend. This is why we shouldn't be overly critical of loan performances.

People will point to Lopes and Denayer and go 'well they're not world class are they? proof' and miss the point entirely. They were let down largely by us and never given the right chances. DEnayer and Lopes, IMO, would both reach the very top under a coach like Guardiola. They had MP who couldn't give a shit though. Lopes, and fair fucks to him, is making a bit of a fist of it right now and after two/three years of stalling might actually be finding his way back onto that path again towards the top, but Denayer's totally fallen off the rails. I can't help but sometimes feel we've fucked off a potential next Aguero, our own Sane or a new laporte self-built at times because we don't strike while the iron is hot and we also demand a ridiculously unattainable level of performance from a kid, or simply ignore them full stop.

We're sat on a gold mine of talent that could save us hundreds of millions and earn us the same too and all it takes is a little due care and attention. Water them fucking plants. It takes 10 minutes and it could set the club up to be something even more special than it already is.
 
I wouldn't even say Lopes stalled that much in France. He spent 18 months on loan at Lille playing regularly, but just kept getting muscle injuries which kept him out for 4-5 weeks at a time. And then at 21 he goes back to the current French champions and now he plays every week (albeit sometimes from the bench). He definitely wouldn't have done any worse than Navas did in his last two seasons for us, that's for sure.
 
Good thread Nev. I think the biggest problem we have is that people presume player A is destined to be great one way or another. They think a player is destined to the top and will follow a linear path of progression regardless and reach his potential. It totally doesn't work that way. They're human and they're affected by a vast array of societal and pschological factors just like the rest of us. I'd expect Foden wouldn't have a fucking clue for St Mirren. Does that mean he's shite? Course it doesn't. You can't put some potentially genius level kid into a team with a bunch of cloggers and expect them to blend. This is why we shouldn't be overly critical of loan performances.

People will point to Lopes and Denayer and go 'well they're not world class are they? proof' and miss the point entirely. They were let down largely by us and never given the right chances. DEnayer and Lopes, IMO, would both reach the very top under a coach like Guardiola. They had MP who couldn't give a shit though. Lopes, and fair fucks to him, is making a bit of a fist of it right now and after two/three years of stalling might actually be finding his way back onto that path again towards the top, but Denayer's totally fallen off the rails. I can't help but sometimes feel we've fucked off a potential next Aguero, our own Sane or a new laporte self-built at times because we don't strike while the iron is hot and we also demand a ridiculously unattainable level of performance from a kid, or simply ignore them full stop.

We're sat on a gold mine of talent that could save us hundreds of millions and earn us the same too and all it takes is a little due care and attention. Water them fucking plants. It takes 10 minutes and it could set the club up to be something even more special than it already is.

Lopes is a big player for Monaco this season. He's still a little inconsistent and has had a few periods on the bench, but he's only just turned 22, give him another year and it wouldn't be a surprise to anyone if he's the latest Monaco player to leave for 40,50m+
 
I think there's also a point to be made that a young player doesn't necessarily have to have the potential to become a first team regular in order to be of any use. I hate being able to use United as an example, but in the last 10 years they've had league goals scored by Macheda, Powell, Wilson and Harrop who were never likely to be big stars (unlike Januzaj and Rashford who may be more comparable to our Foden and Diaz). There's no reason why someone like Nmecha couldn't come in, take some pressure off Aguero and bag a few goals himself.
 
One of the best things about us hopefully wrapping the title up so early will be that Pep should be able to give a few youngsters a chance in the last few league games, especially if we're still in the CL and FA Cup. Other than Diaz and Foden, I'd like to see Nmecha, Smith, Matondo and maybe someone like Gonzalez get a chance. Doyle would be good for the publicity alone, but perhaps he's still too young.
 
Ii think Very often it’s just a way of drawing a line a bit like ,x doesn’t sign ...ah well didn’t want him anyway. It’s a quick way of emotionally disengaging from thinking about potential loss and moving on.
 
I dont know who our most talented 20-21 year old youngsters. For United they start to appear around first team at that age for us its 17-18. Its a big difference imo look at McTominay 1-2 starts as debut last season, this season he had more starts and 11 apps in all comps but he is 21 year old.

For us its Foden and Brahim getting the odd 10-20 minutes but they are 17-18 years old only. Until they get to age 20-21 probably we will say ahh they not good enough but the current U17 team has the real big diamonds. It goes like that since years.

Also its strange for me we had lot of games when we were 3-0 up, 4-1 up and thats when we should have given youth attackers 10-20 mintues in the end instead of letting Kun, Sterling, De Bruyne play the full 90 minutes. We did that many times tho earlier and now all those payers are injured or just very very tired.
Even in League Cup games in early rounds.

So our 20-21 year old ones are probably out on loan. But even if they really impress the chances are that they gonna be loaned out again. And if they dont impress two times in a row on loan we decide they not good enough. Like Denayer had a fantastic loan at Celtic, after that not so much where is he now?
Roberts could be the same great last season, this season he must be injured as he hardly plays, Maffeo will be the next, great last season at Girona, alsogood this this maybe not as much as last year, but Girona becoming a La Liga club and easily overperforming so far, so its harder to perform that well.

We got couple of guys at NAC Breda, Ambrose, Angelino maybe two better ones there.

Aleix Garcia at Girona is failing to play so that is not a very good loan for him.

We got Celina at Ipswich with the occasional great goal and great attitude.

Honestly any of these will be in our 25 man squad next year? Maybe Maffeo has a chance if we move Danilo on who we just bought.
 
Within a couple years, I think we are going to produce some great talents. Against Swansea in the U23 game, we played with 2 19-year-olds, 4 18-year-olds, 6 17-year olds and one 16-year-old (including the two subs).
 

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