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da betsul： Well what a surprise. A player has come to the English Premier League from abroad, not set the world alight then after a full pre-season and having settled in, improves immeasurably and the world recoils in shock, as if it had never happened before.
The player in question is Manchester City’s Edin Dzeko. Signed quite early in the January transfer window for a hefty £27m fee, he struggled to find goals in his first few months in England. When he did however, they tended to be rather important. An equaliser versus Notts County kept City in the FA Cup, and City went on to capture their first trophy in 35 years. Goals against Blackburn and Bolton not only helped capture Champions League football, but helped secure 3rd place in the League, thus avoiding the potentially tricky Champions League play-off.
It is a theme that has followed Dzeko throughout his career. When he arrived at Zeljeznicar as a lanky 13-year-old in 1999, he was given the dismissive nickname ‘Kloc’, derived from the Bosnian slang term for a lamp post. It was the start of a career of upsetting the odds, of making people eat their words. This season has been no different. He moved to Czech club FK Teplice in 2005, and was later loaned out. When Teplice offered €25,000 for him, a Zeljeznicar director admitted he and the rest of the board broke out the champagne. “We thought we’d won the lottery,” he said. When at Wolfsburg, he only exploded goals-wise in his second season, breaking Bundesliga records with his striking partner in the process.
Oh but the experts knew. He was too slow, his first touch was appalling, anyone can score in the Bundesliga, and so on, and so on. This season, Dzeko has been helped with a team system that plays to his strengths more than the one utilised last season – his relationship with Aguero seems at first glance to be better than that with Tevez.
Part of the reason for an English premium on the transfer fees of players is that English players are already acclimatised and used to playing in the division so can get a running start. They are unlikely to pine for another country, an absent family, for sunnier climes, for different food, for different lifestyles. It doesn’t matter how big the transfer fee is, all players are human beings and moving to a new country with new customs, new styles of play and often a new language is not easy, and it takes time to settle. Very few footballers can just waltz in and play football as if they have been there for ten years.
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Football history is littered with examples of great players taking time to settle, and not just foreign players either. Patrice Evra’s debut in a Manchester derby was so catastrophic he was hauled off at half- time. Thierry Henry too time to settle at Arsenal, struggling initially. He turned out to be an ok footballer in the end.
Javier Hernandez is considered to have been an instant success in English football, and whilst he had a great first season, he wasn’t thrown straight into United’s first team. Across the city, David Silva was eased into the team, and grew in stature as the season progressed along with Yaya Toure. And they all had the advantage of a summer transfer, giving them a greater chance to ease into life in a new team in a new country. And only now is Nani reaching his full potential at United. Only last season did Samir Nasri finally acclimatise fully to the demands of the Premier League. The list goes on and on.
Everything is instant nowadays in football – there is no time for building, for patience – managers must deliver instant results, players must perform every match, big-name signings must deliver immediately.
In the same way the Premiership is littered with stories of big-name foreign players flourishing after a slow start, it is littered with big-name foreign players who never flourished, in the same way it is littered with players that had explosive debuts before tailing away. With anyone moving to a new league, you can not truly judge his worth for a good year at least.
So good luck to the likes of Sergio Aguero, David De Gea, Juan Mata, Andre Santos and Per Mertesacker. As De Gea will confirm, god help you if you don’t start well.
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