LangleyBlue1970
Well-Known Member
Mods, can you please close this with the caption ‘if he’s that good we will just buy the **** back’?
But the point of my post was that Palmer's performances at City didn't indicate he was going to become someone capable of producing a 40 G/A season.Obviously?! We (fans and the club) judge 99% of players on their performances for other clubs so I’m not sure how this is the gotcha you think?
We didn’t sign Doku, Nunes, Gvardiol etc on performances for City did we?
He stayed and fought for 3 seasons hanging around the first team, going into his 4th season “in” the first team he wanted to know he was gonna play regularly or go on loan. I can’t understand how City fans are convincing themselves that was unreasonable? McAtee did the same last season, insisted on going on loan to play and the club let him.
If the club and fans expect 18 year olds as good as Palmer to hang around on the promise of a couple of league cup games a season while we buy first team players in their position until they’re 22 then 90% of them will leave. Given only the best 2/3 of each year group are even good enough to be around the first team like that, we’re gonna get an academy graduate come through every 5 years at best.
When Palmer left I said it would be a very expensive mistake for the club but it would be worth it if they learned their lesson because we’ve got a lot of kids 15 and up who have as much talent but likely won’t stick around for years and years to get their chance.
Pep has a tendency to underrate academy players without experience, but he also doesn’t want them on loan, which is putting them in a catch 22. Whether it’s with Pep or after he’s gone, the club needs to find a better way of transitioning players from the academy to the first team if they want a core of academy grown players in the team as they’ve repeatedly said they do because it won’t happen with the current rate of one kid coming through every 5 years or so.
He didn't look good. He played the games when the title was wrapped up and he was average at best. The season he left he came on and scored a great goal against Arsenal and looked good in the super cup final. He was nowhere near this level we are watching now. Nowhere near.He's performing so well. I'm delighted for him but it's quite painful, isn't it.
I think he was very close to performing at this level for us. It's fine for young players to be inconsistent. But he got goals playing off the right, he looked good when he played. And that was just as a fan - Pep and the coaching staff will have seen what he can do in training every week. It did feel incredibly short term to let him go, even if you couldn't have been sure he'd have played as well and Chelsea as he has.