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Before wading in with names to back my prediction, a mention has to be made of Michael Mancienne, Miroslav Stoch and Franco Di Santo who have almost clawed there way out of football’s equivalent of purgatory and already knocked on the pearly gates of first team heaven. We’ve moaned a lot about not seeing a great deal of them, by way of advancement, yet we know them to be there, or thereabouts, and fully expect Mancienne at least to get loads of games next season. Give it another twelve months and the following three may not be too far away from a similar position…
1. Jeffery Bruma - the best young defender I’ve seen at the club in a long while, including the early years of JT and the recent years of Mancienne, and it might even be doing him a disservice to compare his talent to that of Des Walker in his prime. When and where this 17 year old fits into the first team squad is anyone’s guess, but he will and it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s within the time span I’ve set.
2. Patrick van Aanholt - his versatility puts him on a higher level than other defenders in our ranks and yesterday he moved seamlessly from full back to central defence when Sam Hutchinson started limping and had to go off with a quarter of the game left. He’s aggressive, in an Eddie Mac sort of way, and takes a great free kick. A year or so older than Bruma, his first team chance may take longer due to Ryan Bertrand being ahead of him and established stars like Yuri Zhirkov being mooted for a move, but he will surely make the grade with us and we would be foolish not to sign him long term.
3. Jacob Mellis - very impressive again last night and someone who offers something different as an attacking midfielder who is deceptively quick. Sadly, Michael Woods injury has set him back in the Lamps comparison stakes and this boy looks capable of moving into that enviable heir apparent position. As with Bertrand and Van Aanholt, there is midfield competition already loaned out in the league in the shape of Jack Cork and Lee Sawyer, but, as Stoch has almost proved, you don’t necessarily have to take that route to be top of any list.
Conspicuous by absence in the past, apart from Carlton Cole, we never seem to unearth decent strikers anymore. That’s why catching a glimpse of a natural goal scorer [which Carlton is not] in the Reserve ranks is so encouraging. Even though he may still be some way away from the finished product, Fabio Borini does begin to look the part - a right nuisance of a forward who also seems to have that priceless gift of being a bit lucky. He alone, amongst the barnstorming Frank Noubles and pacy Adam Phillips, has that busyness of arrival at the right place at the right time followed by the coolness of finish. He is totally different to the rest and, despite the probable signing of Daniel Sturridge - in the Didier understudy role - I hope his style of play has a future with us and gets him a long term contract too.
Finally, an honourable mention for the teenage goalkeeper, Jan Sebek, who looks as big as Petr and has a real presence about him already. Bearing in mind the number of keepers (4) on the books at Academy level alone, maybe we don’t need to consider further back up, especially if they all have similar attributes to Sebek. The home grown Rhys Taylor is ahead of him and it is important to point out that, of those named above, only Mellis fulfils the 6 plus 5 criteria that could soon darken the Premiership door and blight a lot of foreign opportunities with its shadow. Only time will tell, but meanwhile the future is bright if these youngsters are anything to go by.
Edited by Dorset, 28 April 2009 - 12:37 PM.
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