Claudius wrote:
The only guy who keeps me up at night in this group is Nelson. He could end up anywhere. He seems the most talented but also stymied by attitude and injuries. So he needs careful monitoring and mentoring. We won’t regret selling the others
But you can't know that, that's the whole point. You can make educated guesses but being talented is not unusual in football. Every single year European football loses more outstanding talents than it produces by a good margin. Making it at professional level on the other hand, really making it, to have the character and aptitude to work hard for it every day for the next fifteen years, is what's truly unusual.
I'm a big fan of Wenger's idea that those who dig in and stick with it when things get tough are the ones who eventually come through. He said they had analysed all available data from the academy and that the "stamina of motivation", as he called it, was the single biggest virtue in a player.
We have several young guys in the first team who have shown that they can handle it (unlike someone like Balogun who so far is nothing but a twitter handle). Willock, for instance, was our best player in the Europa League group stage this year. I want to see what happens next.
