In fairness Tierney.
DJ or Hourihane.
Robinson or Wesley/Davis (baring in mind Sheff I have about 6 strikers on their books).
And that would be the same Albie most panned because he wouldn't run the defender and just wiped it in (more average game assists under Houllier from memory - in less games obviously) than Young and Downing that year?)
MF, I think I'm just bored of hearing about these kids we should have kept on when there's no logic they should have been just because they might be good now!
Daniel Johnson is now 27 years old. He left us in January 2015 and has not got close to making it to the Premier League since. If he was of that quality, someone would've bought him by now, just as Maddison, Lewis Cook, Luke Freeman, Josh Brownhill, etc have been.
Sheffield United used 5 strikers when Robinson was there, but he got 16 appearances and 676 minutes in the league alone (just to contrast, Wesley in a 'weaker', lower table team scored in the league every 358 minutes). He's 25 now, not a kid and if he's good enough would be playing ahead of McBurnie, McGoldrick, Sharp and Mousset. He left us in July 2016 and his output in the Championship for Preston was 2, 10, 8, 12; hardly a rate worth shouting about at that level, not close to a Sylvain Ebanks-Blake, Jay Bothroyd, David Nugent or even Jonathan Kodjia and they were all top flight flops.
Albrighton is a different matter altogether. Be was playing regularly enough in the first team and I said from the moment he'd been released it was a mistake and I was proven right there. I never understood the critique of him as his delivery was superb (our version of Beckham!). Cahill was slightly different, but even Martin Laursen agreed with the decision to sell him at the time. Sometimes some players need to move to get the break and found themselves.
However, neither Johnson or Robinson have achieved that yet. They're Championship level players in my mind (like Bannan) and cannot be considered to be worth keeping until their mid-20's because they might be of use then. That's just madness and claret and blue tinted specs to the fore in my opinion.