Long before Raheem signed for us, I worked with a guy who had encountered him a fair bit during his early development. He would often talk about Raheem as, not the only, but a prime example of why he had fallen out of love with youth development. His rationale seemed to be that he and more so his mum were so driven and the focus was so exclusively on what was right for Raheem that it made her/him more difficult to deal with. Obviously I have no idea the degree to which this was accurate, but given his early life and some of the shit he's put up over his career it doesn't take a big leap of the imagination for his prevailing outlook to be a bit 'circle the wagons' and 'it's us against the world'.
From the outside, his comments strike me as having no obvious substance, to be ill thought through and a bit classless . But at the end of the day he is a professional athlete who had no pre-existing affinity with us and who is focused solely on his own needs. So I can't get particularly bothered or annoyed about him but what it does make me realise is how special those players that do develop a true bond and affinity with the club really are.
