Rony Lopes

Status
Not open for further replies.
.A. said:
How good did Lopes look at 15, 16, 17, 18? He was one of the best young talents around and was a major coup for us signing him; he even made a decent impact in most of the first-team chances he was granted. Bold statement ahoy, but it's hard to imagine David Silva being 'better' at the same age.

Lopes was supposed to be the one that bridged the gap between our academy and first team; he's a special talent who ticks all the boxes of the modern City player in his position. The fact he's been sold on without a sustained opportunity to settle into and establish himself on the senior squad is a huge kick in the bollocks to all of those with aspirations of making it within the immediate future, and it makes a mockery of the projected holistic approach.

It'll be hugely disheartening for the likes of Byrne and Barker; excellent young players though they are, it was widely accepted Lopes was the jewel of his generation in our academy, and if he can't get a decent crack of the whip, they might as well start looking for another permanent club tomorrow.

If the primary purpose of the academy is to generate income through sales, fine, but the club should shut up and stop patting itself on the back for creating a holistic pathway of opportunity for young talent that there had been absolutely no evidence of in the 2 years since the term was emphasised.
Click to expand...
I think you're simplifying things too much with Lopes. Yes he looked fantastic in the youth teams against other youth usually older than him and he tended to look the best player at Lille (although if you've watched them you'll know that the bar is set low there). He may yet turn out to be absolutely world class since he's still only 19 unbelievably.
By all accounts he refused to sign a new contract as is his right so with just 12 months left on it City have done the right thing for the club and for Lopes.

He is not good enough right now to take anyone's place in the 1st team squad (let alone the 1st eleven). If he was they'd have kept him and sold someone else, despite claims from some the club are not stupid.

Rather than a kick in the bollocks I'm hopeful that the other kids will use this as a spur to kick on, they're with the coaches every day, they know the requirements.

We all want youth players coming through for the 1st team but I have absolute faith in the club hierarchy that they'll do it when it's right for the club and player both. Yes they'll make an error now and again since there's no magic formula to foresee what a player will be like even 12 months down the line, would Chelsea have still sold De Bruyne if they had a crystal ball?
 
kledippi said:
why haven't we signed a 5 year deal with him sooner then as with all the other players? that was always a plus with txiki signing contracts very fast and soon with dzeko nasri aguero silva toure or other young talents denayer...now we have slept a bit in that case i think and then after the denayer-otamendi thing he didn`t want to sign a long 5 year contract then...but its understandable...if he would have signed at the same time as denayer then we would stiill have the best talent of our academy maybe going on loan to monaco this year then and everything would have been fine....
Click to expand...

There were rumours that he wasn't going to sign a new contract before we signed Otamendi, so I doubt that played a role. He could have done the same as Denayer and signed a new contract, gone out on loan for a season and really showed he was worth a place in the team. He chose not to do so, so really there was no alternative but to sell him.
 
kledippi said:
why haven't we signed a 5 year deal with him sooner then as with all the other players? that was always a plus with txiki signing contracts very fast and soon with dzeko nasri aguero silva toure or other young talents denayer...now we have slept a bit in that case i think and then after the denayer-otamendi thing he didn`t want to sign a long 5 year contract then...but its understandable...if he would have signed at the same time as denayer then we would stiill have the best talent of our academy maybe going on loan to monaco this year then and everything would have been fine....
Click to expand...

I would agree that the academy is developing very good talent, but it would appear that the level of the talent today is not acknowledge by those who work day in day out with these guys as being good enough for City. I accept their decision 100% over that of a regular fan who has watched the EDS on a regular basis.

That isn't to say the next tranche that rise to the top might have a different outcome.
 
People who think we let Lopes go need to check their heads, he wasn't signing a contract so we got 9m for him.

Natcho graduated from the EDS and he's saved us 30-40m so maybe Barker and co are not moping around because lopes didn't want to wait and take his chance at City. We also have a 20yr CB who'll be playing CL football this season, so maybe these buzzkillington's on hear can think about that success story before slagging off the manager and City snr management team..
 
Should have kept Lopes. The truth is that Nasri looks frustrated already with only Navas/Sterling ahead of him, now there's Kevin...

Don't see the point of keeping a player like Samir so he can play once a month in the league (prob not even 90 minutes) and some domestic cup-games. He will look rusty and mediocre every time he's on the pitch, then finally leave for Inter next summer (for cheap).
 
He could have gone for nothing in a few months. The club have got a good deal and he may be worth twice that soon but hopefully there's a good sell on clause negotiated or a buyback option.
 
I fully understand both sides of the argument about youth players making it into the 1st team and the dilemmas we face as a club in that regard, but what I don't get is why MP is being criticised for his comments in 'that' interview or being accused of being disinterested/lacking knowledge regarding our young players based aunthood interview. Based on other things, perhaps it's a more reasonable argument (though I don't necessarily agree). But all the interview highlighted was a balls up in communication for me. Poor on someone's part possibly, but not enough to start a witch hunt and certainly not enough evidence to use it as a stick to beat MP with as some on here have

As for losing Lopes, if it is correct that we have to lose another player to keep him in the squad, I'd prefer, based on the squad right now, that we tried to loan him out. If he refused and his contract had little time left on it, we had no choice but to sell and we achieved an excellent price under the circumstances. I believe it is possible to have that view and also hold the view, as I and many others do, that it's a shame he never got more of a chance and it would have been great to seem him progress further in our 1st team. But life is full of tough decisions which carry risks - I think we made the right one.
 
Gutted he's gone but if he didn't want to sign a new contract then what could we do.

Praying there is some sort of buy back clause or first refusal when he moves on from Monaco
 
The other kids in the academy should be spurred on by this. One of their number has just signed a professional contract with a club who reached the quarter finals of the champs' league, beating the likes of Arsenal along the way. You would think kids choosing the best place to develop their careers would look at this positively.

Whether they are good enough to make it with us is another matter, which is best left to those we employ to make those decisions.
 
Neville Kneville said:
Yeah it's great that.

i go & watch the academy teams for 40 odd years & someone thinks my opinion is merely bullshit even though i am willing to give a reasoned explanation for everything I say. Perhaps you have something worthwhile to add ?
Click to expand...
Honestly everyone is allowed to have their own opinions and no one is wrong. We just see it differently. I've stated lopes isn't a huge loss and our academy will eventually begin to bear fruit
 
mrtwiceaseason said:
What isn't taken into account is a lot of these players are being bought in for smallish fees then you have their wages and development costs.
For everyone we get a fee for ,we will loose money on the ones that are released or move on very low fees
Click to expand...
Not really it's pocket change in the grand scheme of things.
 
Max said:
Should have kept Lopes. The truth is that Nasri looks frustrated already with only Navas/Sterling ahead of him, now there's Kevin...

Don't see the point of keeping a player like Samir so he can play once a month in the league (prob not even 90 minutes) and some domestic cup-games. He will look rusty and mediocre every time he's on the pitch, then finally leave for Inter next summer (for cheap).
Click to expand...
If the way Nasri has been playing when he's come on this season is due to him being frustrated then I can only hope he has a really frustrating season.
 
JoeMercer'sWay said:
Plus, Gomez was embarrassingly awful today, was at fault for the first plus other mistakes in the match, definitely contributed to Dippers dropping points.
Click to expand...

No moreso than most of their players.

That's exactly the same thinking as some on here have with our kids, that if a kid struggles it's somehow worse than senior players fucking up. It isn't. If the team is poor, then it's likely the kid will be too. If it's just the kid struggling then you just take him off. Liverpool could have taken 11 off.
 
Neville Kneville said:
No moreso than most of their players.

That's exactly the same thinking as some on here have with our kids, that if a kid struggles it's somehow worse than senior players fucking up. It isn't. If the team is poor, then it's likely the kid will be too. If it's just the kid struggling then you just take him off. Liverpool could have taken 11 off.
Click to expand...

true, he was awful and directly culpable for at least their first goal though. It's not worse, a fuck-up is a fuck-up, there's just a perceived higher risk through an undoubted lack of experience.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Unread Posts

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top