I dunno about never having played on a full size pitch before, but prior to 2009 he had never played professional football before, and his first year was spent at a practically bankrupt club with no real staff or stability. So he's never been properly coached or taught anything about tactics, positioning and team work. I'd say this is his first season in any type of organised football. He's effectively at the tactical level of a 14 year old youngster who has just signed professional forms. If you watch him in the reserves or for the Portuguese U21s, his touch and control is fine on both feet. But his first touch is always designed to bring the ball into his feet to dribble or run with it. When he plays for the first team, he looks like he's been specifically instructed to get the ball out from under his feet to make an immediate pass to a team mate, which looks like something he's completely unfamiliar with. He basically looks like he's being told to work on all the things he's never been taught before - one touch, two touch, positioning, teamwork, tracking back and so on, and not do any of the stuff he can do, namely taking players on and get the cross or shot in. You may well be right, and he may never learn any of these things, and thus never make the grade, but I think it's too early to judge at this stage. If you want to put Obertan in ahead of Bebe, I'd have no problem with that - he's had three years in France and two in England and is still not showing any signs of being good enough. I've seen enough of him, and he's had enough time to develop, to be classed as a flop in my opinion.
Definitely agree that Obertan and Bebe are too very different cases. One is very raw and the other is just not good enough. Even in buying terms they are different, Obertan was a cheap punt probably based on his dribbling ability that hasn't paid off but Bebe seems to have been bought as a prospect good enough to challenge for the first team, something he has turned out not to be. A very odd buy. Given how far behind your other players he is in terms of the development of his 'footballing brain' I would not be surprised to see him go on loan to the championship next season.
I don't think Bebe has been bought as someone good enough to challenge for the first team this season - he's been bought as someone with pace, balance and potential, who we can train in the basics. Gill specifically referred to him as a potential player, and SAF said he was an impulse buy and one for the future. He's trained with the first team squad this season in order to accelerate his development and has only played either as a late sub or in relatively unimportant or easy matches. He was probably too raw to even loan out at the start of the season - all he would have done on loan is play as an individual and not really develop his core skills. I'd also not be surprised to see him get a four or five month loan to a championship club in August, and maybe go to another PL club in January if he can make good progress. I think he's a least a year younger than players like Vela, Traore, Matic, Mancienne, De Laet and Diouf, and they're all seen as good prospects who needed to go on loan this season in order to make the grade.
Im basing my idea of what SAF thought Bebe's role would be on how he was bought. I have never heard of a player who is regarded as just a prospect being signed for a sum as large as 7.5 million without being seen at least once by the manager; I would have thought that they expected him begin paying off his transfer fee a little earlier than the amount of time it has already taken him to challenge for the first team. It will be interesting to see how he develops in the future for sure anyway.
I think that's the nature of modern football - getting the best prospects is now seen as being almost as important as getting the established stars. Especially at a club like United, where established stars like Veron, Forlan and Berbatov can take as long to bed into the team as prospects like Smalling, Rafael and Nani, and may not settle at all. I'm sure they hoped that he might develop quickly and be challenging, or at least on the fringes, of the first team at some point this season, but realistically that's a lot to expect from someone who's played one season for a near bankrupt club in the Portugese third tier. The transfer fee seems to have been paid just cos we had the money floating around from the Ronaldo sale. It is a gamble, but given the price paid for established players like Torres and Carroll recently, it may well turn out to be worth it in time.
Completely disagree that this is anything like a normal football signing even in this day and age but oh well, I might be wrong.
It's not a normal signing, but not a completely outlandish one. Chelsea have just paid ã8-10 million for Piazon, a 17 year old who hasn't made a single first team appearance for Sao Paolo, and we paid ã10 million for Smalling who'd only had 19 games of professional football prior to joining. It's not the norm, but it is a symptom of the fact that the top clubs are increasingly willing to pay large amounts to gamble by signing talented player before they hit the big time and the price shoots up. We could have had Anderson for 7 million Euros when he moved to Porto from Gremio, but waited a year and a half and ended up paying 30 million instead for essentially the same player. Likewise with Smalling - ã100k from Maidstone and 18 months later it's a reported ã10 million. I'd sooner we waste ã7.5 million on Bebe than risk missing out on a player who could end up being top class with enough training and development.
Heres mine. ```````````````````````````````````````Fabianski.```````````````````````````` Brown ``````````````````````````````Squillaci Evans```````````````````````Konchesky. Obertan``````````````````````````````Poulsen Gibson.``````````````````````Joe Cole. `````````````````````````````````Torres Ngog.
Two reasons ago you lot worshipped Ronaldo and as soon as he joined a big club,you called him a greedy ****.
Swarbs Good point, I'd forgotten about Piazon and Smalling. KPR Why no players outside Arsenal, Man utd and Liverpool? And putting Torres in there made me
What he said Err, no we didn't. We said thanks for the 3 PL titles, the CL win, and the ã80 million. You might be less bitter about Torres if he'd brought you more than money... KPR's is basically a list of players he wants Liverpool to sell and the worst Man Utd players. Fabianski's only in there cos he couldn't think of a United or Liverpool keeper he could claim is bad.
