Thoughts on flops

[HughieG]

Just read that Thauvin could be joining Bayern Munich in the summer. Last year he was linked with Barcelona. Not that he's necessarily going to either of those, but he's a star of the Ligue 1 right now and big European clubs are looking at him right now.

Same can't be said for Cabella. He's slowly faded from the Marseille team and is now on loan at St. Etienne.

So two former players of ours, both arguably flops at our club, gone in two different directions in terms of proving themselves since they left us.

Personally, I feel that Thauvin never really did the get the chance to prove himself here. There was also the probable issue of him lacking motivation which is of course a major negative - BUT I have a feeling McClaren had something to do with this. And that's the point of this thread I guess - we tend to write players off as flops when really I think it's the club that has been largely unsuccessful in nurturing, improving and ultimately establishing foreign players in our various sides over the years. We all know that the coaching at this club has been generally average or below, at times appalling, at least in the years leading up to the appointment of Rafa. We have bought talented players and then counted on them simply getting used to the PL on their own (eg. Cabaye + Ben Arfa and Pardew relying on them to make stuff happen on their own when his simple tactics weren't or even were working). That's not a way forward, and I think Thauvin suffered from this. He came on as a sub most the time and it's not that he hadn't a clue as a player, but it's more that he didn't know what to do out there because there was no plan for him. 'Put him on and hope for the best'. Not really a sustainable philosophy.

I realize that some players are in fact not good enough. Cabella had the technical skills, but I believe he simply wasn't good enough for this level on many other parametres.

If we want to have success with buying foreign talent in the future, we need to make sure they want to play for us. Then, we must make sure there is a Plan A and B in place for their progress so that their development isn't arbitrary. This requires patience and not shipping 20mil players out on loan five months after joining us just because they haven't contributed as much as soon as expected.