Brandon Barker

[BigOscar]

Well we could realistically be looking at next years B list having the likes of Lopes, Pozo, Fofana, Ntcham, Angelino, Maffeo, Glendon, Gunn, Celina, Byrne, Bryan, Tosin and Ambrose on it, although I imagine Pozo, Ambrose, Ntcham, Glendon and maybe one of the spanish fullbacks might be heading out on loan along with Barker, but we're getting to the point now where we have an awful lot of talented young players coming up, with more and more as you look down the age groups.

I said it in a different thread, but the way I see it is that you graduate from the U18's whenever you're deemed ready, you then spend a year in the U21's, then a year on loan, then you fight for a squad place. At the moment, we are still recovering from a pretty terrible and badly trained crop of players, so we don't have any players who've done their year on loan and are now fighting for the first team(except Rekik, who was judged not ready to fight for a place), but that should start next year with Lopes, Denayer, Fofana and maybe even Cole and Leigh, although you'd imagine they'll hve to go out again at a higher level. That way you should have a conveyer belt of 18/19/20 year olds coming back each year with a year of first team football under their belt, ready to fill out the squad. It's only a short term problem of not having a lot of them at the moment, due to the dearth of talent who would now be 20/21/22.

 

[sam-caddick]

Look at silva he's not built like a brick wall and 6 foot plus, he skips over players and twists and turns away from tackles

No but look at his legs and frame, he looks like a man even if he is 5 foot 7, his build and strength has enough power in it to hold of big and strong men.

Barker has the technical ability to play for our first team and because of that I would like to see him play against Boro, however his frame and legs still look like that of a boy and to consistently play at the highest level he will need to bulk out a bit.

When Barker is in his 20's, if he could build himself up to have a body like Bale he could be an absolute beast of a winger.

 

[twosips]

Look at silva he's not built like a brick wall and 6 foot plus, he skips over players and twists and turns away from tackles

No but look at his legs and frame, he looks like a man even if he is 5 foot 7, his build and strength has enough power in it to hold of big and strong men.

Barker has the technical ability to play for our first team and because of that I would like to see him play against Boro, however his frame and legs still look like that of a boy and to consistently play at the highest level he will need to bulk out a bit.

When Barker is in his 20's, if he could build himself up to have a body like Bale he could be an absolute beast of a winger.

I think it's rare that footballers get as big as Bale. He's bloody huge.

 

[sam-caddick]

Look at silva he's not built like a brick wall and 6 foot plus, he skips over players and twists and turns away from tackles

No but look at his legs and frame, he looks like a man even if he is 5 foot 7, his build and strength has enough power in it to hold of big and strong men.

Barker has the technical ability to play for our first team and because of that I would like to see him play against Boro, however his frame and legs still look like that of a boy and to consistently play at the highest level he will need to bulk out a bit.

When Barker is in his 20's, if he could build himself up to have a body like Bale he could be an absolute beast of a winger.

I think it's rare that footballers get as big as Bale. He's bloody huge.

Bale like Ronaldo weren't big at 18, both were similar to Brandon and both have had to work on their physiques.

Barker could do the same.

 

[waspish]

No but look at his legs and frame, he looks like a man even if he is 5 foot 7, his build and strength has enough power in it to hold of big and strong men.

Barker has the technical ability to play for our first team and because of that I would like to see him play against Boro, however his frame and legs still look like that of a boy and to consistently play at the highest level he will need to bulk out a bit.

When Barker is in his 20's, if he could build himself up to have a body like Bale he could be an absolute beast of a winger.

I think it's rare that footballers get as big as Bale. He's bloody huge.

Bale like Ronaldo weren't big at 18, both were similar to Brandon and both have had to work on their physiques.

Barker could do the same.

Yep you have point about Ronaldo he was playing quite a lot of 1st team games from the age of 19 but it's wasn't until he was 21/22 he was consistent

 

[FantasyIreland]

Bale like Ronaldo weren't big at 18, both were similar to Brandon and both have had to work on their physiques.

Hard work and a little help.

 

[BigOscar]

Fucking face transplant as well as a lot of bulking up

 

[twosips]

Bale and Ronaldo are both similar in terms of general size and pure natural strength. They're both absolutely incredible athletes. They're freaks when it comes to physique, 90 odd percent of players don't get near that.

I'd be happy if he was just a nice and nimble winger like Robben. He's already showed signs of having that ability to get his body between the defender on the ball many times though so i'm really not concerned. Take this as an example. Then the example at 1.16 where he holds off his defender pretty easily.

[video]http://youtu.be/dxioLotYBOw?t=38s[/video]

He scores later on too in that video ^ He was fucking great that game.

 

[Neville Kneville]

If you stop that video immediately, or let's say 40 odd seconds, how on earth is that the little frail guy with thin legs being described on here ?

He's better built than many of the players in City's first team now would have been when they first started playing regularly & looks no different to any typical young player starting in a first team & bigger than many.

Look at Bale here.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fSouKFgkN0[/video]

There is no difference at all. If anything, Barker looks more athletic.

And imo, he could be doing exactly what Bale does there, for City, right now. Given a bit of game time. Possibly somewhat better.

 

[twosips]

When you pause it at 41 seconds he actually looks much bigger than his fullback and he's already bigger now than he was a few months back. He's about the same size as Bale in that video you posted. I don't think he'll ever have physique problems as he's a clever lad who knows how to use the weight he has.