Football is lacking world-class players between the ages of 25 and 27.
That is the view of former Aston Villa and Liverpool attacker Stan Collymore, who has questioned where all the world-class players are.
Although football has a lot of top-quality players, Collymore believes there is a real void of talent in their prime.
Football is experiencing one of the most fascinating transfer windows in its history. Fans are seeing club and country record fees broken on what feels like a weekly basis. Declan Rice to Arsenal for £105 million and Moises Caicedo to Chelsea for £115 million earlier in the window typified just how much money is being spent on players.
However, Collymore thinks clubs who are going all out to sign younger players with high potential is a risky approach and one that isn’t guaranteed to pay off.
“We know Chelsea’s transfer policy is to sign as many young and talented players as they can and to build a squad where they can all develop together but that’s a huge risk,” the ex-pro said in an exclusive interview.
“There are no guarantees the likes of Mykhailo Mudryk are going to go on and become world-class; even Moises Caicedo – he’s a good player and he certainly could become one of the sport’s best defensive midfielders but there are no guarantees that’ll actually happen. Who knows? – Give it a few years and what’s to say Chelsea aren’t trying to offload him for a third of what they paid Brighton for him? – We just don’t know.
“It’s not just Chelsea that don’t have any world-class players. It’s the same at a lot of top clubs. Think about it, where are all the 25 to 27-year-old world-class players? – Man United don’t have any. Spurs don’t have any. Arsenal don’t have any. We see a lot of young players with high potential and a lot of older players, who are, or were world-class, such as 32-year-old Kevin De Bruyne, but where are all the world-class players in their prime?”
It is amazing to think that with a combined squad worth a staggering £3.7 billion (as per Transfermarkt’s valuations), Spurs, Man United, Chelsea and Arsenal don’t have any world-class players.
Of course, the subject of a player being ‘world-class’ is often subjective and comes down to personal opinion, but do you disagree with Collymore? – And if so, which players at the aforementioned clubs are world-class? – Let us know in the comments below.
Collymore is full of it!
Not just full of it……it’s oozing out his mouth
Yeah, we need a ‘world class’ Stan Collymore to help us identify who is ‘world class’.
ROFL.
I guess, nonsense statements like these get him airtime .. guy has to earn a living 🙂
By what metric is the 25-27 age bracket meaningful in any way? O.o Sports medicine says footballers usually hit their prime at 28 and fall off starting at 32. Why are players aged 24, or even 23 ruled out? Is it just so he doesn’t need to debate whether Odegaard and Rice are world class? XD (Mind you, Odegaard WILL be 25 this December, and Rice next January.)
If you quote Stan, you do it at your own risk. Any reasonable person can see this is a completely random assertion without any significance. By putting it out there, you make it look like you agree, but then you also provide zero justification for it. So…
PS. I assume the point of Stan’s rant is that City are the outlier here – Dias, Rodri, and Grealish would presumably all qualify as “world class” for a plurality of punters and pundits, and they’re 26-27. But are Saka, Gvardiol, Saliba, Trent, or Gakpo not also “world class”? Are, say, Onana and Paqueta not “world class” because they aren’t at City? If Paqueta does move to City this window, will he suddenly count as “world class”?
Questions, questions, questions 😀
Stan who?
Call yourself a football fan and don’t know who Stan Collymore is… Perrrrrrrrrrrr-thetic!
I think you missed the point of JBG5’s sarcasm.
Am unknown footballer in his days talking down best-in-class players. He was never world class and therefore can’t identify one when he sees it
How would he know?
To become a World class player depends on several factors,
*injury, attitude of a player,flexibility,patience and the natural talents. Look at players like robben,Salah, kante,hazard,Drogba, but in this error take a look at Reece James,mount,caisedo the statistics shows something close to achievement,we need to define what world class is but I think every player can transform positively or negatively Salah and bruyne all played at Chelsea including hazard,no body new about them but now the world knows them,even
Collymore is retarded
Lace up your boots sir