Gudjohnsen and Hleb battle for the ball whilst training for the mighty Barcelona

It is a regular occurrence in football – a player excelling for a club moves to a bigger team where his career stagnates as he spends most of his time on the bench or not even in matchday squads. The modern game has gotten to a stage where only world class players or top talents will succeed in a bigger club to what they’re used to and it’s highly unlikely for the stars of a smaller team to make the leap to a top team and excel there. Particularly when the team’s already got a starting 11 that are not going to be displaced. Moving to one of the giants of football is a dream for almost all professional players but career-wise it is not always the best of moves as their reputation takes a beating as they fail to perform or fail to become a fixture in the first team. This happening does not shock in any way and is quite predictable.

In the past players who have played for smaller sides have gone on to make less appearances for their country than they would have surely done had they been at a top club, like Matt Le Tissier who spent his whole career at Southampton and only made a limited amount of international appearances despite being a great player, or don’t end up retiring with much silverware, like Alan Shearer who followed success with Blackburn to many trophyless years with Newcastle. Additionally, the move to a bigger team can work out should the player work hard enough and prove good enough and so the risk in trying their hand out at a bigger team continues to appeal to players who are regularly performing for smaller teams.

Players like Scott Parker, Steve Sidwell, Robbie Keane and Jermaine Pennant have all gone from excelling at smaller clubs to warming the bench at bigger teams and have ended up sold back to smaller teams where they struggle to pick up the excellent form they had prior to their earlier move. Sure there are times when they will break into the first team at the big club and impress but they will either be rotated soon enough or the club will sign another player to replace them as big teams are always looking for improvements on their squads as they look to win trophies all over the place.

For some players a move abroad constitutes the dream move and players dream of switches to the likes of AC Milan, Barcelona or Real Madrid. Take Cristiano Ronaldo for example – idolised at Manchester United, Ronaldo was desperate to move to Real Madrid as it was the club that most appealed to him. Whilst Ronaldo will undoubtedly succeed at Real, many players achieve these dream moves only to find it going wrong. Good examples of Premiership players who have failed over in Spain are Eidur Gudjohnsen and Aliaksandr Hleb. Hleb was a regular for Arsenal but he never really excelled at the Emirates and how he was going to become a first team regular at a club which boasted Lionel Messi on the right wing was speculation that could never be realistic. Whilst Hleb was on the books of one of the world’s premier clubs and did manage to play in the famous red and blue shirt, he never managed to get a regular run in the first team. He only made five league starts and was often a substitute for the Spanish giants and was considered one of their weakest players over their successful season and a move away from the giants occurred just one year after his arrival in Catalonia – hardly a dream career with the Blaugrana.

Gudjohnsen’s tale is slightly different as he managed to succeed on occasions for Barcelona; Gudjohnsen’s goalscoring record at the club was decent and he would often be beaten in terms of goals only by Barca’s regular front three. However he never became a first team fixture as Samuel Eto’o was the preferred striker for first Frank Rijkaard and then Josep Guardiola. Every summer Gudjohnsen was linked with a move away from the club as his chances of being a star there seemed impossible. Finally he left this summer as a man who’d spent three years with one of the world’s best teams but having never really achieved much and he was just a reserve.

In reality it all comes down to how willing the players are to spend their time being a squad player and only making a limited amount of appearances. Whilst being at a big club can help international prospects, spending all your time on the bench could easily damage them (though it didn’t for Wayne Bridge). Having already starred at other clubs most players who move to a big team are not the type to happily wait behind the scenes for a chance and thus the risk of completing their “dream” move is intensified. Despite this players continue to join clubs where they never stand a chance of becoming a first team fixture and then they go on to moan about their lack of first team action. It’s good that they have faith in themselves to make it at the top level but the years of stagnation are all pointless when it comes down to it.