I think with Teixera it's worth a little bit of context. Yes he's a good footballer, yes he has the silky touches etc but is he 23 years old? Compare him to the young fella at Tottenham, the one we were going to sign but wouldn't stump up 5 million quid for (F***** if I can remember his name) and he's 19 years old. THAT is the standard if you want to play for a top team (and I hope we all aspire to be one of those).
He did do some nice stuff, but the one occasion when he really had the opportunity to open up the opposition he fluffed the through ball (the one where he then pretended that Song had fouled him. He hadn't). He had two chances to win the game with shots and yes he hit the target, but where was the feint to shoot and then the calm dink? Really top young players do stuff like that, and I don't think this lad is quite in that bracket.
Then when folk compare him to Ibe it is for me like comparing chalk and cheese. It's a tools question, in that it's very easy to see with Ibe that he has everything you need to be a top player in his position, no handicaps to overcome. By that I mean he has pace, power, can go both sides, can hit it off both feet and has the physicality to become a bit of a monster. In Teixera's case he is as physically imposing as he is ever going to be. There's never going to be any pace to get him out of a tight spot, there's never going to be the body strength to hold off a Kouyate (who again was excellent before he got injured) and there's never going to be the running power to go box to box.
So we have to hope he becomes a David Silva, a Mezut Ozil, a Luis Garcia, a Gianfranco Zola. That's how good you have to be when you are physically dominated, and I'm pretty sure the Tex isn't in that bracket. Equally, it's probably telling that even though he has only months of his contract left to run, we haven't been to the best of my knowledge knocked over in the rush of teams looking to steal him for a bid of say 3 million quid (which almost certainly we'd take I should think).
That's not to say he cannot make it, not at all. I think though those clamouring for his inclusion in the first eleven now and then listing players he could replace at the drop of a hat would in all likelihood be the first ones turning on him when he got found out. He's not ready, arguably he never will be, but he certainly isn't as of now IMHO.
Logged