Ultimately, with a guy like Amad, I don’t think you can ‘expect’ him to become a star. If you sign 4 kids like him, 1 probably busts, 2 probably give you money’s worth (give or take), and perhaps the 4th becomes a mega star.
What is a great player? Who is too good for the Championship? I think that it’s really easy in football to overrate ‘the right player in the right position on the right team’ — and underrate the rest. Like this is what Brighton is all about. They have very specific roles in mind, and get players who are really good for those roles. I remember when they signed Miltoma. They said something like ‘you never know how well someone can adopt to the PL or even Europe from Asia, but this guy is really good in 1 on 1 situations, we know that for certain, that is why we signed him.’ Then they put him in a position where they constantly get him into those exact situations. And it pays off. Cuccurella is another guy like that, looked like a world beater for Brighton and has been very meh for CFC. How good would Odegard be for West Ham? How good would Bernardo Silva be for Everton? So many are raving about Gabriel’s play for Arsenal, and sure, objectively, he has been been great, but that is a kid that screams train-wreck had he played for a shaky team like say a Leicester.
My point is just, from my view it doesn’t really matter if Diallo is leading the Championship in scoring or not. If Diallo had played for Birmingham his job would have been much harder, now he is ‘team of the year’ in the Championship, partly because Sunderland is a good team and he has a role that fits him really well.
But what — does — matter for me is that, does Diallo have potential to be a good playmate for guys like Rashford, Martial, Antony, Sancho, Bruno? You bet. He can make the highest octane offensive plays, but he is also very altruistic/team loyal. Can work hard and be eager just to get open so that he can take a pass, and with one touch move it 6 feet to someone else who is open. In addition — we all call out this organization for everything between heaven and earth, but one thing that I think it’s doing really well is teaching kids to effectively tic-tac their ways through defenses — with high speed. Link-ups in traffic high up the pitch. And that is right up Diallo’s ally too, which is a big part of our identity.
Is there an opening for him on the roster? Definitely. We only have one left footed RW and Diallo fits really well into that role in ETHs system. That role also comes with defensive responsibility, and sure, Diallo isn’t even remotely as physically strong as Antony, but he does make up a lot from being extremely quick. And while I think ETH thinks that Antony is really important for this team (I do too) — Antony is still young and I don’t think he should nor will be playing 50 of our 60 games or whatever. Antony tends to pick up knocks, you need backups at all positions, etc.
Of course, nothing is a given. And ultimately, it comes down to Diallo to perform. But I would bet that it’s 90-95% that he will come in and win a spot and that we will be very excited about his prospects after seeing him start around 20-25 times give or take depending on injuries etc.
But he is not going to be someone they carry the team next season, of course. He won’t do for us what Saka has done for Arsenal. He won’t be as great as Antony has been. But in 3-4 years? I think the sky is the limit for this kid. You need to stay healthy. You must have that amazing desire to always get better. Etc etc etc. But I wouldn’t rule out that he will have carved out a very big role for us when things are said and done in 10-12 years…
