
Originally Posted by
DelroyFacey22
Kasper Schmeichel, Ben Davies and Lee Hughes were all clearly playing well below their level when they were playing for us in League 2. I'd say the same for Alan Judge and Jack Grealish too, the latter who was usually only stopped by being fouled or making the wrong decision at the end of a run (Ie, lacking an end product).
Some players improve a lot in their careers, Matt Ritchie for example I don't think many people at the time thought he was playing way below his level when he was on loan here and now he's a regular premiership player. I'd say Salah is similar, he never showed anything like the ability he has now when he was at Chelsea and you could say he was lost in that squad with a lot of better options in front of him at the time.
That's why I think it's important sometimes that you move away and get first team experience, Salah and Kevin De Bruyne both did it, played regular football in Italy and Germany and came back to the Premiership as world class players.
Had they been English players they would have stuck around at a big team like Chelsea, maybe go out on loan to the Championship and eventually leave and play at that level or lower. Andreas Christensen is a great example too and him playing regular top flight football in Germany has clearly helped him.
Sod the "too many foreign players hurt Englands chances", our players need to broaden their horizons. Can anyone name an English player playing in a top division outside of England? Jadon Sancho left Man City to go play at Dortmund and has been doing pretty well recently but after him I can't think of anyone since Jay Bothroyd at Perugia. Other than that you're going back to Beckham and Michael Owen going to Madrid.