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.