JackSomething
Alan Curtis
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2020
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Captain_Sham said:I don't think we own one player of genuine Premier League quality. If you look at the likes of Naughton and Ayew sure they have a tonne of experience but did they shine? Were they quality ? Not consistently for me. Bennett was popular with both Leicester and Wolves fans but I'm guessing he just past his best. You could make a case for Routledge but he is all but done now. Premier league players tend play in the Premier League.
Look at the players we sold over the last few seasons. Oli hasnt set the world alight. DJ the same. Joe Rodon not even making the bench. Not our player but Rhian Brewster has been an absolute disaster. The gap is so huge.
It's an interesting question. My initial thought was that the individual parts look much better when the team as a whole is strong. That Oli, DJ, Brewster and Rodon would all be good enough in a promoted team despite their struggles in a new system. Then I thought not many players from our last promotion team were genuine PL class.
Ash gets the nod as he was class with Wales and good initially with Everton before age caught up to him. Allen gets the nod as well. He was fine at Liverpool and Stoke.
No one else in that promotion team did much elsewhere. Sinclair was never good enough for Man City and doing well at Celtic is practically a given if you can kick a football. Taylor, Pratley, de Vries, Borini, Dobbie. None of them had any real success elsewhere.
I'd guess Britton would have done well in the right system and Rangel should have been good enough to succeed at another PL team too. Nathan Dyer would be a maybe for me. Wayne had done little elsewhere before finding a home here. I doubt Monk would have been good enough elsewhere.
So that's 2 definite PL quality players (Ash and Allen), plus 3 more who I think may have been good enough elsewhere (Leon, Rangel, Dyer). Do we have 5 players in the team now who we think would succeed in the PL? I don't think so personally. Does that mean Cooper is a better manager than Brendan if we do get promoted?