True but he’ll have to start playing games and impressing someone (or improve his attitude) Presume we would hope to get a profit on Quina - think we paid a million for him ?
When he left West Ham he had a chance to build a career. It’s not happened, it’s not going to happen. I suspect it’s cheaper to give young players like this a chance than to run effective academy. Best to try and move him on permanently in the summer.
Rod Thomas had the potential to be the next big thing but peaked at about 4 feet. Was sad to watch him dribble past his man with superb ball skills, take another 3 or 4 paces, whilst the beaten stationary defender just stretched out his leg and took the ball.
I thought he was going to be a star when he first broke into the team, the way he created space for himself on the ball with his quick turns was fantastic. It's a shame to see the lack of development. I spoke about Quina with a coach at a Portuguese club recently (awkwardly saying how Quina started well but is now pretty **** and then he told me he's good friends with Quinas dad, oops ) and he said it's a big problem with the Portuguese youth players in general at the moment - players not improving or even regressing as soon as they hit a half decent level.
I sense that he left West Ham because he was already impatient to play 1st team football - probably before he was ready. But then he fell into a social circle at our club that wasn’t particularly conducive a to ‘hard-work, be the best you can be’ attitude. Certainly something I’ve heard anyway…. A player with his natural ability needed ti be fully focussed on developing a game on the pitch. But far too easily distracted by matters off it - and just believes natural ability is enough to make a career. Has been told by manager after manager that he needs to work harder and the penny doesn’t drop. Best hope now is to get him to a club like MK Dons, Preston under Ryan Lowe, Plymouth, Rotherham under Paul Warne or Swansea under Russell Martin. Lower league clubs that will toughen him up but have styles that have heavy emphasis on ball-carrying and moving the ball quickly. The boy needs to rebuild, not seek another quick fix or have ideas of grandeur in La Liga or whatever.
I don’t think our turnover of head coaches helped a player like Quina at all either. What coach has got time to worry about developing him when they need instant results. At any one time would anyone have been focused on helping him learn?
Good point - probably why we have had no youth players in general coming through. I wonder what the players must thing about all these coaches? They cannot all just be content to get rid of one after a few months surely. Ok the players are paid well and probably in some cases glad to be here at all but there must be some frustration?
We ruin quite a lot of young players, I guess we shouldn't be surprised Quina has gone the same way. I mean we're starting Ken Sema ahead of JP, what the ****?
Some players just naturally develop through playing, but with a player like Quina he seemed to make the same mistakes over and over (losing possession by over complicating things, holding on to the ball for too long when a pass was on etc.) but it’s doubtful we ever had anyone actually picking up on this and helping him to learn, he’d just get dropped instead. I think we’ve probably had quite a few players in a similar position, with Gino thinking just loaning them out here there and everywhere will help them develop, when in reality some of them probably needed some actual coaching.
He’s not a baby though, right? I agree at critical points the short-term objectives for short-term head coaches might see them pick a (say) Sema over a Quina. But equally Quina could have just been good enough when given opportunities even in the league below. That would have been a sure fire way to develop.
I think he got the opportunities for sure, but then he made the same mistakes and was dropped. The question is was anyone at the club picking up on these mistakes and working with him to improve? Maybe they were maybe they weren’t. Loaning him out to Fulham isn’t really going to help either, he either needs to make an instant impact on their first team, and if he doesn’t then it’s not in their interests to develop him either.
I can’t see why they wouldn’t have. Plus however derided it is, the point of the Giraldi / Giaretta role is to provide that sort of continuity. Realistically Quina’s bubble burst when he made limited impact for us in the Championship. Any hopes of him establishing himself in a Watford PL starting XI were pretty much finished by that. The fact he’s made zero impact at Fulham confirms it beyond doubt.
I don't think it's the turnover of managers per se, but the fact that for the past 3 seasons, we've been in relegation and promotion races, where we can't afford to give fringe players a go, it's no surprise that he played his best football for us when we were safely in mid-table. I can sort of understand why we thought he'd be up to the Championship last season as he had shown talent when given opportunities, but were we so arrogant to assume we'd be safely in mid-table again in 19/20 and could therefore give him ample opportunities to shine?
Changing horses at Toddington Services as we speak, should be here in time for training in the morning.
Surely every club has analysts that go through games in detail with players, I'd assumed that was a given. And I'm sure Quina could watch it back too if he wanted to understand why he was dropped. He just seems like a player that is high on technical ability/skills and low on awareness/decision making. How much the latter could be improved upon is open to debate but would certainly need a lot of application from him, which from all accounts doesn't seem likely to happen.
You’d assume so, but who knows. We’ll definitely have analysts that look at games and analyse where we went wrong, but I’d imagine more on a team level so we can improve on whatever we did wrong for the next game. Any incumbent coach will have their own back room team, but there is no way I can see they would spend time developing a player like Quina, because their focus would be on the here and now, and trying to get a result in the next game. It’s then just a question of whether the club have staff that aren’t linked to the manager, whose job it is to develop a player like Quina separate from the first team coach. It’s always seemed to me like our answer to their development is to keep loaning them out and hoping they improve that way.
According to Levanthal it is happening. https://mobile.twitter.com/AdamLeventhal/status/1478404355585937418
Interestingly (perhaps, perhaps Leventhal doesn't know), if you follow the link, it says a permanent move is possible. Not saying we'd get tons of money for him, but better than nothing I guess
Pete O'Rourke @SportsPeteO 5m Swansea City are in talks over signing loanee Fulham winger Domingos Quina. Watford are ready to cancel his loan at Fulham to allow him to make the move to Swansea in search of regular first-team football
Mid-table Championship, more his level at the moment. I hope for his sake he takes this opportunity now...
Do we still have some fans who think he has a future with us? Please make yourselves known so I can LOL at you.
We need him up to speed for next season so he can step in and effortlessly replace the likes of Sissoko and Louza, like he did Capoue and Doucoure.
The year is 2036, Quina is embarking on his 27th loan spell away from the club and someone posts on this thread that he has all the talent in the world but just needs to apply himself and that maybe this is the right time for it all to click...
