Quote Originally Posted by Rock_Flock_of_Five View Post
Just out of interest, what is that you "really like" about Josh Murphy?
If you had said you 'liked' him, I would still have questioned what it is that makes you feel that way about him. However, you qualified it by adding "really".
Personally, I find it difficult to 'really like' someone who doesn't apply themselves to their profession in the right manner.

There again, perhaps you've met him socially and he comes across as, well... a really likeable person?

No, I've never spoken to Josh but I certainly have spoken to others who have when he was at Norwich ,( where he had similar problems with inconsistency ). His reputation was definitely as a very nice kid since you mention it, so perhaps that coloured my description, even though I wasn't consciously referring back to that.
Another thing which occurs to me in answering your question is an incident which many might remember when a small kid , apparently separated from dad in the crowd was running round screaming and upset. Josh ran over there , picked the kid up and placated him by taking his shirt off and handing it to the child before restoring him to his dad. Well of course that says something, but again I wasn't thinking of that in my earlier comment.

No, what I meant was that I consider him one of the most naturally talented young players around with the potential to reach the highest level and actually referring back to his Norwich days, I'm told that application certainly isn't the problem, but more one of concentration lapses and what we might call a lack of " killer instinct" ,( to put it a bit strongly I suppose).

This happens a lot with immensely talented kids and often they never manage to tune into what will change them from a schoolyard Pele into a reliable and consistent professional. People wrongly think they're not working hard enough when the problem is something different altogether and you just desperately want them to break through the invisible ropes holding them back.

I'm hoping that MM might be able to push the right buttons because Sir Neil did to some extent at first. Both are the real deal in terms of management as opposed to airy fairy types, but that's a two edged sword - They'll have a better than average chance of motivating a player, but they'll have limited patience and they won't bugger about too much trying to play head games with a player if he's slow to respond .

- sorry if I rambled...