SebastianBlue
President, International Julian Alvarez Fan Club
- Joined
- 25 Jul 2009
- Messages
- 51,376
Sadly, I think you are right.
That's especially the case given he’ll be coming back from a meniscus injury. As someone that has damaged meniscus from football injuries — but had very good care, if not quite as good as what Sergio receives — I can say it can (and very often does, even with professional athletes) impact your performance levels.
Couple that with him naturally declining based on age (relative to the level he was and is required moving forward), he may still be a top tier player, but not at the world class heights he was even a year ago.
Right now I think our only world class players are De Bruyne, Sterling (despite his miss on Saturday, which has happened to all of the greats at one time or another), and Ederson — all three would be snapped up immediately by nearly any club in the world if available.
Laporte is close but needs a bit more time to cut out more frequent errors than the others.
I think Foden is very likely to eventually get there and Bernardo, Jesus, and Rodri still have the potential to do so, as well.
Otherwise we have top tier to very good players in most positions, with former world class players retiring or declining out of that level.
We really need to retain De Bruyne at nearly any cost at this point given that.
