unquestioning loyalty is not the way forward. people may take advantage.
better to make an honest judgement of where you stand with someone. are their actions those of someone who is committed to the cause?
robinho is a case in point. people showed enormous patience with him, defended him to the death. I bet almost no-one feels like that now, quite rightly so, because he's patently not the least interested in the success of this club. all the nice things he had said in interviews turned out to be meaningless.
I'm not asking for every player to throw themselves into tackles like Zabaleta. and I'm not asking for them all to run around as much as Tevez. everyone has a different style, and those differences are what make a team. what I look for is a bit more subtle. is this player doing the best he can at any moment? admittedly poor form and fitness can be mistaken for lack of effort, but you do try to build up a picture of how hard people are trying to make it work for the team. and over a period of time, you can build up a picture of someone's attitude from the way they behave and, occasionally, the things they say. it's also important to consider their personal and professional situation.
for example, barry gets a lot of stick. but I think he has as much interest in our team succeeding as any of our players. he is not going to get another chance for success at his age. I'd love him to take control of games more, but he always breaks sweat and does a lot of small things to help the team. he doesn't often fuck up and put his own team mates in the shit. therefore I believe that the positive attitude that he projects in his interview is genuine.
there are other players who I just don't believe are thinking about the team at all. I always worry that some of them would be perfectly happy to walk away and join another premiership club, and I sometimes question their commitment to making it work here and now. perhaps they don't have anything to lose, they have a way they want to work, and rather than embracing change, continuing to push themselves, they could just start again at another club if it doesn't work out here. really I'm saying that I doubt every last one of them is completely committed, and motivated to put in that last 10%. it's not about running yourself into the ground. the last 10% is mental, it's taking responsibility, it's putting your heart and soul into the success of the team. I guess for some it is putting your heart and soul into being everything that you can be, working hard to improve, working hard to concentrate and contribute for the full 90.
it's just the way football is. some of these players have had several clubs already, and walked away when things didn't work out. they aren't scared of doing it again. you can't tell me that it makes sense to be blindly loyal to people in that situation. sentiment is fine to a point. but even ex-academy players, especially ex-academy players, have to continuously contribute everything they can, otherwise they are taking up a place in the squad that should be given to someone more motivated and determined to be as useful as possible. human nature being what it is, if we allow sentiment to interfere with our attitude to ex-academy players, you run the risk that they will abuse that goodwill.
