Ademola Lookman out to prove Everton wrong, Dele Alli can’t do much right and Pep Guardiola and Antonio Conte need to grow up
Newport summed up Erik Lamela a bit too well in the scouting dossier and West Ham were right to sack racist chief - but how did he last so long?
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IF YOU haven’t heard much about Ademola Lookman yet, you’d be impressed by him, trust me.
He was a straight A student at school. He’s a World Cup winner. He’s quick, sharp and has a keen eye for goal. He’s modest and likeable, yet full of self-belief.
So when Sam Allardyce froze him out of Everton’s starting line-up, Lookman dug in his heels and secured a January loan move to Red Bull Leipzig.
And, on his debut, he became the first English-born player in a generation to score in the Bundesliga.
When Lookman and Co won the Under-20s World Cup last June and then England’s Under-17s followed it up with an even more impressive global triumph, we celebrated but also wondered what would become of these kids.
We wondered what would happen if they ended up being managed by an old-school type like Sam Allardyce, armed with the blunt weapon of accepted wisdom, and lacking the imagination to allow Lookman to flourish.
Even with a mid-table Everton team in a season going nowhere.
Lookman made one start under Allardyce, scoring twice in a Europa League win over Apollon Limassol in December, but was restricted to two substitute appearances after that.
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When Leipzig offered him a loan deal, 20-year-old Lookman — a winger who can also play centrally — was adamant he wanted to go to Germany despite Allardyce warning against it.
Allardyce said: “We tried to persuade him not to, because I think it is a big challenge for his development with not being able to speak the language.”
This was a pretty neat summation of everything wrong with traditional English football thinking — the fear of the foreign and unknown, the unwillingness to learn a new culture on and off the pitch.
The kind of thinking which meant that England’s national team lacked the breadth of experience to compete at the top level. But Allardyce relented, admitting that Lookman — a bright lad from an outward-looking generation who tend to be knowledgeable about foreign football — had needed to be ‘stubborn’.
In fairness, the Goodison boss added that he hoped Lookman ‘proves us all wrong’. Which is not an eventuality Big Sam usually seems to relish.
But after Lookman scored the only goal for Leipzig against Borussia Moenchengladbach — as Everton were being soundly caned 5-1 at Arsenal — Allardyce was asked whether the kid might have made any difference.
Unimpressed by such a snowflake-style question, Allardyce answered: “I’ve got Yannick Bolasie who cost thirty million quid and Theo Walcott who cost twenty million. Both have a lot more experience than Lookman.”
If only the Big man heeded the words of songstress Jessie J, ‘We want to make the world dance, forget about the price tag’, then wouldn’t that world be a happier place?
A keen proponent of karaoke, Allardyce might even add that, ‘It ain’t about the cha-ching, cha-ching, or the b-bling, b-bling’.
But there we digress into a fanciful daydream.
English football should certainly hope Lookman proves Allardyce wrong.
Because, while there is little practical to be done about the roadblocks to home-grown talent in the Premier League, our kids can consider broadening their minds in that big old place called ‘abroad’.
There was some disappointment when one of England’s brightest Under-17 stars, Jadon Sancho, was recalled to join Borussia Dortmund’s first-team squad rather than play in the latter stages of the World Cup in India last October.
But how encouraging it is that the 17-year-old has now made six first-team Bundesliga appearances, including two successive starts last month and a cameo in Germany’s biggest fixture — Dortmund against Bayern Munich.
The same agent took Lookman to Leipzig and Sancho from Manchester City to Dortmund.
While no agent operates as a charitable service to the future of England’s national team, this one — Emeka Obasi — is doing his bit.
The FA have improved England’s national age-group structure almost beyond recognition. Yet it was only 18 months ago that they chose Allarydce to manage the senior team.
Luckily, that brainstorm was only temporary.
Because many of this next generation — including Lookman and Sancho — are gifted, uninhibited, well-schooled and open-minded.
Things really could turn out differently for English football — but only if it allows itself to imagine.
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THERE are things we’re allowed to write about Dele Alli...
The diving and cheating, the talks about linking up with Jorge Mendes, the stupid gesture earning a two-match international ban.
And then there are things we’re not allowed to write about him.
But suffice to say he’s becoming a cartoon parody of a Premier League footballer. And that it won’t be long until people are going to start seriously wondering whether he’s worth all the fuss.
PEP GUARDIOLA, with the most expensive squad ever assembled in world football, names only six subs on Manchester City’s bench at Burnley because of a supposed lack of players.
Antonio Conte, having spent £340million of Roman Abramovich’s wonga since arriving at Chelsea 18 months ago and having been given a whacking pay rise to £9.6m-a-year last summer, moans about an absence of transfer money and public appreciation.
And Jose Mourinho whinges about a lack of noise from the Old Trafford punters who fund his £15m salary by watching his strangely unappealing team.
My old Nanna would have told them all to ‘stop showing off’.
IT WAS a brilliant exclusive from my colleague Ken Lawrence to get hold of Newport’s scouting dossier on Tottenham’s players.
It helped the League Two side go so close to knocking Mauricio Pochettino’s men out of the FA Cup 11 days ago.
Footballers often complain that newspapers are harsh on them — but we’re rarely as cutting as Newport’s spy was about Erik Lamela.
“Lacks passion or drive, does not like to tackle or be tackled, largely ineffective and poor defensively,” he wrote.
And he wasn’t much kinder about several other Spurs men.
Tonight’s Wembley replay should be tasty.
WHEN West Ham recruitment chief Tony Henry suggested his club had a ‘No Africans’ policy, it was deplorable on a basic human level.
Sadly, though, the tone of casual racism which earned him the sack from the Hammers is hardly rare in the football world.
Then there’s also the fact a business with an annual turnover of £140million can choose a man like Henry for a senior talent-identification post.
Someone who’ll happily regard Didier Drogba and Mo Salah, or indeed Gary Player and Idi Amin, as if they were identical because they’re from the same continent . . .
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I’D watched Carlos Carvalhal’s Sheffield Wednesday team a couple of times and thought they’d looked extremely well coached — so I wasn’t as surprised as most to see Swansea improve under the Portuguese.
It’s just these ‘wacky’ analogies of his. And the way he laughs at them when no one else is really laughing.
Could someone have a quiet word and tell him he’s in danger of coming across as a bit of a weirdo?