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

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