by Brain Traysers »
03 May 2019 00:58
Moussa Dembele is more similar case than Maddison imo - he scored bucket loads for Fulham youth teams (and seemingly always against us), broke through at the same age as Loader - 11 league games in 2014/15 (as an 18 year old) for 330 minutes and 0 goals 0 assists. Next season he forced his way into the first team (waiting until the 4th game for the first of his 37 starts), featuring in all but one game for 3360 minutes and 15 goals and 6 assists as a 19 year old, leading to a £16m move to Celtic. He is now the joint 6th top scorer in Ligue 1 (despite limited minutes - 1809) and playing Champions League football for 3rd placed Lyon. Only 3 Ligue 1 players (with >400mins) have an xG90 above his 0.7 - Mbappe, Cavani and Neymar.
Personally, I don't think Loader has the potential to match Dembele yet (
although their records for u16-u19 National Teams are comparable... ), but it goes to show that anyone writing him off after this season is doing so very prematurely. I would be concerned if he was leading our line next season as it's a huge gamble, but would hope he gets plenty of minutes and the opportunity to break into the first team fully as Dembele did.
Of course, lower down the spectrum is Moussa's teammate from the Fulham youth team that always used to beat us, Cauley Woodrow. Despite 29 first team appearances as an 18/19 year old in the same 2014/15 season that Moussa only played 11 games, he is now with League 1 Barnsley after 15 goals across 82 championship games (52 for Fulham, plus two loans).