I don’t think a lot of people do overrate them, they generally rate them about right, but a lot of people definitely over rate many of the players we are linked with buying and sometimes buy.
The point I and others try to make is not that we are continually ignoring great young talents, it’s that we are not always making best use of some of them, whilst wasting money buying not great talents.
In Pochettino we had a manager whose success came from getting players to buy into a collective aggressive energetic tactical ethos. He had a couple of young academy players available to him that could fit that ethos, but he chose to play older, purchased players that were a bad fit for that ethos - regardless of their respective abilities. Sometimes it’s not even a purely talent argument, it’s a tactical one.
Poch ignored the chance to get some fresh legs and minds into his team and it could have helped.
Someone said Nkoudou reminded them of Hazard before we signed him.
Good times.