A year ago Valencia was awful.
Of course I remember Valencia at his peak; the problem is though that it just didn't last long enough. It takes more than a season or two of good form to establish oneself as a world class player. He was certainly getting there, but has since declined rather rapidly. If Valencia had struggled with serious injuries these past twelve months as Ashley Young has the past twenty-four then I'd be arguing against any criticism of him also tbh.
If you've genuinely watched a lot of Aston Villa over the years and not spotted Young's quality then I feel bad for you, son. It just goes to reiterate my point about people not being very good judge of players. He's certainly had seasons comparable with Valencia's top form; not as high profile of course, but in terms of demonstrable ability Antonio Valencia hasn't shown anything which Ashley Young couldn't replicate when fully fit.
It certainly isn't absolutely undeniable that Valencia is the better player of the two.
Yeah, a year and a couple of months ago I should've said (taking out the summer period). I said it was absolutely undeniable that Valencia
has been the better player. I think you are one of a handful people on the entire forum that would disagree with that. You keep saying about Ashley Young at Villa but I'm not hearing much about what he was actually like. You're just saying he was this quality player without really explaining why. I can tell you what he was like - he was more expressive, more prone to drifting centrally (clearly either under instruction, or not under as much instruction as others), better on the turn and with his back to goal and quite productive due to his monopoly on every set piece (and because of Aston Villa's style of football). There was also less emphasis on defensive play back then than there was with us. What I've said there...that is what Ashley Young was like at Villa. He was a good player, but he wasn't one of the top wingers in Europe. That is a level that both Nani and Valencia have reached for a long enough period for that to be representative of what they are like as footballers.
You talk about serious injuries also... do you remember Valencia had a broken ankle and serious ligament damage that kept him out for most of the season once? That is as bad an injury as anything Young has had here to date, but he came back and looked a top class player again very quickly. I'm not holding that against Young - they've had different problems - but it's not always a case of excusing everything a player has done because of injury. Quality can still shine through, and another good example of that is with a player like Louis Saha.
This player potential stuff is patronising bollocks, by the way. Neither me or you are scouts or club coaches and we can only judge by what we see. I have seen a player who, in terms of his attributes, is a good crosser, a good shooter from range, a decent dribbler, fast, has a reasonable touch and is a hard worker. He's potentially a good/more than good Premiership winger then. Not a great one. He may become a great one, but it is pure guesswork at this point and not grounded in any sort of reason to be so confident that that sort of player exists. If that player does emerge then it will be unusual. Not unpleasant, but a highly unorthodox player development curve, particularly for a winger. I want him to be as influential as Park like I say; I see that as being possible, and I'd be delighted if he got to that standard because we need more players of that level of influence. If not though then I hope we don't balls up Januzaj's progress here. Januzaj is clearly a lot more talented and if Young does not improve to that extent then we should be looking at phasing Januzaj in before we risk losing him.
There's one final thing to say, and it is that Ashley Young looked more exciting a talent at Watford than he did at any point afterwards. You go on about his Villa form but he actually looked a really good talent at Watford. I actually wanted us to sign him at one point. For United he has had real problems by comparison in terms of expression, link up play and composure. That absolutely needs to be sorted out before he becomes anything like the sort of player you think he could be and, to be fair to him, there have been signs here and there of him improving this in the last couple of games. These are only signs though and it is absolutely understandable to not be as confident as you are here. He has looked so inhibited and so unwilling for us and for England. Our insistence on repeatedly spreading it out wide to him and Valencia has destroyed our quality of football over the last year or so.
