In the TOOFIF golden era, David Lloyd used to be able to fill pages of his fantastic Fulham fanzine with examples of the local and national media making basic mistakes when attempting to cover Fulham Football Club. The ‘near enough is good section’ would regularly feature contributions from the sub-Standard, but often contained gems from the national media as well.
Alas, David is now only found fulminating in H5 or in the pages of the national newspapers, but Gary Jacob’s match report on Rodrigo Muniz’s rescue act at Brighton yesterday contained this curious paragraph after the journalist hailed Josh King’s energetic display:
Fulham have been here before when producing talented youngsters, such as Patrick Roberts, Harvey Elliott and Ryan Sessegnon, none of whom really made the big impact at the club that was imagined when they burst on to the scene as teenagers.
The glaring issue with that characterisation of the Fulham academy’s past is obvious. Neither Roberts nor Elliott stuck around long enough to threaten the first team after their initial introduction as teenagers. The former came off the bench to help Sunderland turnaround the Championship play-off final at Wembley last year and might have been better advised to remain at Craven Cottage rather than make the move to Manchester City. Elliott might have excelled at Liverpool but is now looking to further his career elsewhere and the suggestion that Sessegnon didn’t fulfil his potential in SW6 is downright insulting.
The Roehampton wonderkid did everything he possibly could to a) get Fulham to the top flight and b) keep them there and his career has only been revived by his return to the Cottage. Sessegnon scored the goal that levelled the play-off semi-final against Derby in 2018 before setting up Tom Cairney’s winner at Wembley and left for Spurs having scored 25 goals in 120 games. The point Jacob wanted to make would have been better illustrated by the example of Matt O’Riley leaving Motspur Park having been offered a contract and converting the penalty that put Albion ahead yesterday, but he missed that open goal.
The Times might not be the paper it was after they ditched Henry Winter for the monotonous Martin Samuel, but Gary Jacob is usually better than that. Near enough is good enough indeed.
Young players should prioritise playing over being in the reserves at Man City or Spurs. They don’t realise the bigger clubs don’t care and buy good youngsters to take them away from being in opposition teams and don’t really care beyond that.
Well said! And what a burn
And what about Carvalho?
It must be very difficult for a young man to resist the temptations and the bright lights of the top teams. I think most of us would find it very difficult to resist. And of course then there’s the money.
In an era where every wannabe feels entitled to their 5 mins of fame how can you blame them. Youngsters manipulated by cynical grifters you see in the pop world and anywhere the talentless exploit the gifted. Parental guidance and a caring and informed approach from the club is the only way you can stem the early departures.
Maybe less than successful transfers will begin to have a salutary effect. That said none of the aforementioned kids have exactly failed, they are after all playing in the best league in the world and not for peanuts.