Reminder of rising Regis

DAVID PLEAT tells a story about scouting a young striker, playing for Hayes in the Isthmian League. Cyrille Regis had been scoring prolifically throughout the 1976-77 season and a number of clubs were on to him. Top clubs, too. Back then it wasn’t unthinkable for a player to move directly from nonLeague to the old First Division. On the night Pleat, then with Luton, watched Regis, so did a dozen or more managers, coaches and scouts. He didn’t have a good game. With about 10 minutes left, the talent-spotters were looking at their watches. A steady trickle made their way towards the exit. Pleat says he was down the stairs on his way out when Hayes’s winger put in a cross and Regis rose four feet above any other player on the pitch to head it into the net. The bosses froze. This was a player with value. Within days, Regis had signed for West Brom, where he scored 112 goals in 301 matches. Pleat uses the story to show that if a player can be the best at just one thing, he has value. Certainly, a player who can leap like a stag will always have his admirers — as Shawn McCoulsky, a 21-year-old forward on loan from Bristol City to Newport, may be about to find out. You can teach a player to become a better footballer; you can’t teach him to jump a torso higher than the rest, and nail a last-minute winner against Leeds. ALVARO MORATA took plenty of criticism after missing three one-on-one attempts for chelsea against Arsenal last week. His conversion rate in such circumstances or similar — clear opportunities from which he is reasonably expected to score — stands at a measly 39.1 per cent. This sounds poor, unless one considers the competition. Mo salah, one of the most prolific goalscorers in the Premier League this season, scores from a big chance just 40 per cent of the time, Alexis sanchez 44.4 per cent, sergio Aguero 45.4. even Harry kane only scores from 61.9 per cent of his major chances, meaning he misses around four in 10. The deadliest player, one on one, in the Premier League right now? Raheem sterling at 66.6 per cent. He has to start for england this summer.