do players improve anymore or do they just work (in a system, or for a manager) or not

ok

i think we can accept a case for shall we call em mental/process learning and development

unless ob you are saying AOC improved technically as opposed to just his decisions, consistency, conditioning (all of which id agreed with btw) i still think that there's very little evidence of players improving in any of this aspects in games once they make their top level bow (bar nvs assertion that traore is now crossing better)

for instance, jhendo is on a soccer am skills segment from years back as a youth and he has all the silks, so while his game has developed in terms of using his arsenal of ability in-game, i dont think we can say he has worked on the technical aspects themselves in that same timeframe

ok well finishing is technical and raheem sterling has improved his finishing imo, okay he gets a lot of tap ins at city which is a function of playing in that team but he also scores chances that there was no possibility he'd even attempt when he was at lfc let alone execute.

the obvious one is ronaldo who famously worked on his technique relentlessly, or are you talking post-ronaldo era?

ideally yeah post ronaldo

sterling is a good shout

I kinda think it's too restrictive to exclude any kind of learning/positioning from development, like you want to isolate psychomotor skills as a unique set?

not exclude, yes differentiate

Nah I get it but tomatoes tomahtos, like you said this is mainly just Yr own cry into the void about a peculiarity of Spurs's recent history

also a pondering of the freezing of these abilities in different circumstances maybe

Andy Robertson seems an obvious example - clearly the LFC stattos saw something in his form while he was being slowly relegated at Hull, but throughout his first season mostly playing back-up to Moreno, there was nothing to suggest he was capable of eg the cross to Salah vs Man City this season.

But living in Hull Robertson and Maguire were both recognised and adored at the time, hard to distinguish personal development from playing in a better team at a better standard

hmm i think its not tho.

then ofc you have the phenomenon of the career clogger who pulls out a piece of world-class skill/delivery/striking once or twice in a career against spurs and is that a related thing

like, and im rambling now but are there, for instance, players at epl clubs who can genuinely not trap a ball or shoot straight under any circumstances but have physical, positional, game intelligence, whatever abilities that make up for that, or if the worst epl player on a technical basis was dropped into a five a side game would he have silks beyond what we could dream of etc etc

i think about the performance of technique in contact sports a lot btw

as a fantasy sports player robertson and maguire were more profitable at Hull ha

Henderson is one of those players who has improved through hard work and focus but appears to have near boundless reserves of energy and the discipline and footballing intelligence to play pretty much any role he's asked to. Most players lack that last bit.

Milner is another in that vein but he never possessed the motor that Henderson has.

Dembele was 24 or so before being recast as a central midfielder and improved in the role throughout his 20s. The entire system was built around his physical attributes though and Poch never managed to adequately replace him.

Recasting big, fast forwards as central midfielders appears to work pretty well in general, give or take the odd Alan Smith.

aw poor alan smith, always felt he was undervalued in any of his many roles tbh

It was a result of Fergie only managing to buy one competent central midfielder in the last decade of his tenure.

rooney was a rb fyi

tanganga was an epl level defender in any position at the moment of conception i dunno if this is relevant