Bryan Gil your time is now. Sonny did look well off the pace and this goes some way to explaining it.
Not many are to be fair. This should/ could be a chance though for a young and talented player to get some game time and show what he’s about. He was the only bright spark after Chelsea, a run of games could do him some good and surprise a few.
Bergwijn ain’t fit until next week I believe, and Gil is the other natural left-sided player. I expect him to start against Morecambe and hopefully build from there. We’re going to need him in the coming weeks.
I think that losing Son for a few weeks might prompt Conte to change formation. 5-3-2, possibly leaving Kane out against Morecambe.
Just to add on this, I think it’s also worth remembering that Gil is one of the brightest prospects in Europe, he wasn’t a punt signing like Clarke/ Nkoudou etc. He was a player that was looked at by many of Europe’s elite and even now Barca continue to be linked with him just 6 months after joining us. There’s a serious player in there and the only way we’ll ever see it is with game time. Which I hope begins with Morecambe and continues against Chelsea/ Arsenal etc. just hopefully he gets picked in his favoured role and not bungled out on the right. Though I fear Dele or Lo Celso will get picked before him, hopefully I’m wrong but…..
I hope so too but I don't think any club's hit rate on young prospects is very high. I'd be happy in practice if he turned into a solid squad player. But getting game time has to improve his chances.
Dortmund's is, as are clubs like Ajax, Salzburg and in recent seasons, Leicester. But with someone like Gil, he's somewhat a level above the usual prospect, we signed him after he'd already played for the Spain senior side as well having made around 50 appearances in one of the best league's in the world. There's still the possibility he could turn out a flop but Gil is a player whose chances/ odds of being a success are higher than others. But as you've said, for him to be proven a success he needs the game time - and I really hope he gets it.
The annoying (if that's the right word) thing with Gil is I can't help wondering if part of the thinking when signing him was "Well, he can probably do a job on the right wing..." even though, while he was playing on either flank in the 2018-19 season, once he started breaking through at Sevilla he mainly played on the left while for the Spain NT he's only played as a LW As I believe I said a while back, there's also the feeling that maybe the expectation was Sonny would be playing through the middle so there would have been a place for Gil on the left, but then The Sheikh Mansour Team played silly buggers we slammed down the shutters on any and all communication with them
Long term there could be the possibility for Gil to be transformed into an inside forward/ inverted winger on the right. Bale made that switch in his career too and I remember before it properly happened that Redknapp tried him out there to a lot of raised eyebrows but right now Gil's style is definitely suited to being a natural winger on that left flank, where he can beat a man and knock in a cross. Personally I also think - again, in time - he could be moulded into a CAM, he's seemingly a quick thinker with the ball and he can dribble beyond players for days, an improvement in his vision/ passing and he could be a real handful directly behind a striker or two. I've said it before but I do see a fair few David Silva comparisons and it's worth noting he began as a LM/ LW for Valencia and was still so for a few years at City before transitioning into one of the best playmakers in the game. But as of right now and for the immediate future, I'd definitely prefer to see Gil played as a LW or as close to the left as possible and preferably in the first XI team too, not in a makeshift B team with zero chemistry and a severe lack of quality.
