He’s done it again.
And you just wonder how many times he’s going to have to keep knocking on the door before Pep Clotet finally lets him in.
The Blues U23 side defeated their Crewe Alexandra counterparts 1-0 yesterday afternoon, with the goal coming from, yes you guessed it, Miguel Fernandez. Fernandez has been on fire so far this season for the U23 side, and given the board’s recent comments about wanting to develop younger players this season, it can only be a matter of time before someone like him gets a run out in the first team.
With all the options that the club have brought in and used this season that are trying to get Lukas Jutkiewicz some help up top, the likes of Alvaro Gimenez, Kerim Mrabti and to a lesser extent Fran Villalba and Jeremie Bela, who can play ‘off him’ rather than ‘with him’, none of them have really been able to produce on a consistent level. When your second top scorer is your left-back, you know there’s a problem.
Whilst the step up from the U23 side to the senior side isn’t exactly straight forward, we’ve seen with the likes of Jude Bellingham commanding a place in the first team, and Odin Bailey making a few appearances here and there that it’s not impossible to make an impact with the seniors once you make the step up.
Even if he were to perform at 50% what he’s producing at U23 level, then it’s still going to be more use to the first-team than some of the others that trot out on a Saturday afternoon.
I’m not saying that he is instantly going to be the answer and fire the Blues up the table scoring a hat-trick week after week. But there is clearly a goalscorer in there that is waiting to be unleashed, and if he can just be given a couple of minutes here and there with the senior side to show us what he can do, then we can get a little bit of a sense of if he has a future with us.
Should Miguel Fernandez be promoted into the first-team soon?
Yes
No
And given that he’s only with us for six months, we’re really running out of chances for that to happen.
