A charlton fans views
Most Liverpool fans won’t have a clue who Joe Gomez really is beyond the conjecture and speculation. As a Charlton fan, I see him as one of the country’s best young defenders worth much more than the mooted £3.5m…
The first time I saw Joe Gomez, I literally couldn’t believe my eyes.
I recognised him from the numerous articles in the Charlton programme and from the wide-eyed youth team reports that obsessives had delivered back to the club forum.
I knew this 17-year-old was our next great hope. But what I couldn’t understand about this huge, hulking figure waiting for a train at London Bridge was how he could be just 17 years old.
Shaking his hand and congratulating him on recently winning the European Championships with the England u-17s, I – 24 years old and well over six foot – somehow felt like the little boy in the shadow of a guy born in 1997.
I’m sure a few Championship attackers went through something similar last season. Having to check with their manager ‘which one’s the kid again?’ – unable to accept the defender giving them such a hiding was just over half their age.
But it’s not just Gomez’s advanced physique that belies his years. In his first (and only) season of first-team football at The Valley the defender slotted in with ease. There were no moments of uncertain jangly knees, nor hands plastered to forehead after a harsh lesson learned. Cool and certain with a smart playing style, it quickly became apparent that having the inexperienced youngster in our back four was no hindrance.
Gomez featured at centre-back and right-back for Charlton, he’s more suited to the former position but featured more prominently in a wide position. He was excellent in both, and his above-par technical ability for a player his age suggests he’d be more than comfortable in midfield.
No wonder Liverpool are interested. He passes all the basic requirements for a young modern defender: Big and strong? Yes to both. Fast? Very. More comfortable picking a pass than punting it into Row Z? You bet.
His first league start came against Derby, at right-back. This was early in the season, against a team who had only just missed out on promotion months before. Charlton won, left-winger Simon Dawkins was hauled off after an hour (his replacement Jonny Russell fared no better) and a low-key but perfectly crafted star was born in South London.
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Moving away from home for the first time and joining a club like Liverpool is bound to burden the teenager with challenges he’s never faced before. I don’t like to admit it, but there aren’t many tests left for him at Charlton – he’s passed them all.
Charlton’s coaches were smart enough not to burden a developing player with first team football every week, but Gomez still made enough appearances (21) last season to easily pick up the club’s young player of the year award and to be nominated for the Championship “Apprentice of the Year” award. It’s no small thing that at a club which has recently produced a number of England youth level internationals into the first team (Jordan Cousins, Diego Poyet, Jonjo Shelvey, Carl Jenkinson) Gomez is widely considered to be the best.
The Catford-born, Lewisham-schooled kid progressed through the Charlton academy during one of its most fertile periods. So many trophies have been won at youth level in recent years, so many professional contracts signed, but through it all Gomez has been the crown jewel.
Not long after first playing for the under-18 side when he was 13, Gomez’s name begun to appear in connection with bigger clubs – Arsenal, Chelsea and now Liverpool. Before making his first team debut at 17, Gomez guided the u-18s to back-to-back league titles to add to his England honours.
Yet even after years of speculation, if Gomez is about to trade Charlton for Liverpool now it feels far too soon for Charlton fans who have only have a handful of games to remember. And, if the rumoured £3.5m fee is correct, we’ve not got anywhere near enough in return. But he knows what he’s doing. By all accounts the committed Christian is as smart and a considerate young footballer as you’ll find.
Liverpool fans, I know right now you’re not particularly fussed. I know you’re frustrated with FSG’s buy-young and cheap Moneyball-lite philosophy. An 18-year-old defender from Charlton is hardly going to send a yellow-tied Jim White into spasms on Sky Sports News. But believe me when I say that in this transfer you’re getting one of the very best young defenders in the country. Just like Gomez himself, it could be bigger than you first thought.
