Premier League Betting: Not everyone can be Wayne Rooney
Football Food For Thought
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Dan Fitch /
30 March 2010 /
Bale has got the monkey off his back, though there still seems to be one stuck to his neck.
"No one should be penning an obituary notice on the career of someone who’s not yet old enough to hold an HGV license."
Dan 'The Betting Man' Fitch is getting thoroughly sick of people writing off young footballers who would struggle to get served alcohol in the USA.
I blame Wayne Rooney. Ever since he bunked off his evening paper round to score a screamer for Everton against Arsenal aged just 16, young players in this country have been expected to be world beaters whilst still covered in acne.
Not every player can be like Rooney, who had a physique like Charles Atlas whilst still a child. Some young footballers take longer than others to mature, whilst some are destined to never rise above their early promise.
I feel that we tend write young players off too early in this country, before they've had the chance to develop. No one should be penning an obituary notice on the career of someone who's not yet old enough to hold an HGV license.
One player whose career was feared dead but has awoken with renewed life, is Gareth Bale. He was hailed as a potential superstar when he burst onto the scene at Southampton and started to precociously whack free kicks into various top corners.
After a bright start to his career at Spurs, Bale suffered from persistent injuries and lacked confidence, as he struggled to break back into the first team.
Much fun was had from the fact that Bale set a record of playing 24 matches for Tottenham without being on the winning side. Things looked so bad for the Welshman that there was even transfer speculation linking him with a move to Nottingham Forest, or worse... Serie A.
Even Spurs message boards were full of Tottenham fans who were convinced that Bale would never make it, but you would be hard pressed to find anyone that still holds that opinion.
Because following to an injury to Benoit Assou-Ekotto, Bale got the chance to resurrect his career at Spurs and has taken it with both hands. Since getting back in the Tottenham team he's been their most influential player and one of the major reasons why they're now the [2.58] favourites to finish fourth and are just [3.15] to win the FA Cup.
Yet there is nothing remarkable about the way that Bale has blossomed into a major Premier League talent. He was bought by Spurs as a promising teenager, learned his trade for a couple of seasons and then when given the opportunity, cemented his first team place. This is a perfectly normal way for a young player's career to have developed, but to hear some accounts you would think that Lazarus was playing at left back for Tottenham.
Bale is still only 20 years old. Over at Arsenal, Theo Walcott is just a little bit older at 21 and is still subject to major criticism.
At 16, Walcott was the next Thierry Henry. Then he went to the World Cup and it was decided that he wasn't actually all that good. One hat-trick against Croatia later and Walcott's career was back in the ascendancy, only to be recently labelled as 'brainless'.
Time will tell as to how good Walcott can be, but now is not the time to judge him. Look at how the likes of Aaron Lennon and James Milner have progressed over the last couple of seasons. Who's to say that Walcott won't mature in a similar fashion?
Even Rooney himself has been criticised for taking so long to mature into the world-beater he looked like he could be at 16. No one can argue that Rooney hasn't now become the player we all hoped he would and he trades at just [1.13] to be the PFA player of the year.
We had to wait eight years for that talent to fully mature. Was it really that painful?