He is too young though and confidence for high risk / reward passes can grow, since he has the natural instincts for it, but is still too shy. There is hope is what I am saying.
Ok
But in general, football fans give too much credit to young players in terms as = he is young, he will improve in EVERYTHING.
Like in Football manager games where a player (if given trust, a good coach and matches) = more or less always improves in all skills. A LOT.
But it doesn't work like that in RL.
Players aged 25 are usually already slower than themselves aged 19.
The only aspects where players usually grow are tactical aspects and maturity in decisions, reading of the game, positioning etc.
For example, let's take a look at some of our former young players who were also getting tons of credit and their defenders always replied: you are an idiot, give the kid a break, he is 19/21/22/whatever.
Arthur:
came here aged 22. Today he is 26 and a half. Has he improved at anything?
He is literally the same player as aged 20 or 21. In fact, we could say that he is even worse than that promising kid from Gremio.
Frenkie De Jong:
came here aged 22. Today he is 25 and a half. Has he improved?
The same as Arthur, he is the same player. Probably even worse than that promising, happy kid from Ajax.
Dumbele:
came here aged 20. Today he is 25 and a half. Has he improved at anything?
He has better defending (he was a disaster when he came). And more or less, that's it. He is still hot and cold, low IQ, unreliable player. But our team got worse so now even this version of Dembele is our 2nd best player.
But, remember posts from 5 years ago: give him a break, he is 20, a kid will turn out good.
Well, he is 25 today, and nothing happened. He hasn't turned out good.
Halilovic:
came here aged 18 nicknamed as a Croatian Messi. Today he is 26 and a half.
Give him a break, he is just a kid in a new country. He has tons of talent, he'll turn out just fine in the end.
8 years later and he changed 10 clubs and played for: Barca B, Barca, Sporting Gijon, HSV, Las Palmas, Milan, Standard Liege, Heerenveen, Birmingham, Reading. Today he plays for Rijeka at Croatia, who finished 4th in the last season and are currently 7th in this season. And 8 years ago people thought that he will be our starter. Since, he had talent. He just needed time and trust, they said.
Is he a better player than that 18-19 year old kid? No.
More or less the same player. Probably slower, worse, fatter and less enthusiastic.
He is still as equally as annoying and frustrating as 8 years ago (when 90% of fans adored him).
He turned into some sort of a CM who plays hero-balls at a midtable Croatian team:
Honorable mentions: Semedo, Alena, Puig, Oriol Busquets, Malcom, Andre Gomes, Denis etc.
When Valverde was here, a lot of fans whined at him because he didn't play our young gems: Dembele, Arthur, Malcom, Semedo.
EV is an idiot, they said.
I used to reply: if in 5 years ONE of those 4 will still play for us, that will be a huge success.
People usually replied: you are an idiot.
5 years forward, only Dumbele is here, all others are gone.
A few years later, people wanted us to sell Rakitic, Vidal and all older players so that our new gems named: Alena, Puig, Oriol Busquets could play.
Again, I said: if in 5 years, ONE of them will be here, that will be a success.
As always, they replied: you are an idiot, you don't know nothing about football.
3-4 years later, none of them is here, for a reason.
Now we have a new crop (of even worse players, it seems), in Pedri, Gavi, Torre, Nico.
Of course, there are players like Xavi, Iniesta, Thiago, who were gradually improving over years, Football-manager style.
But as seen on the examples above, probably 80% of young players don't improve too much after the age 20 or 21, they are already on their footballing peak.
Pedri is physically weak, there is no cure for that.
He is similar to Arthur in terms of shooting = he just don't wanna shoot.
And the 3rd problem is his low workrate in terms of offering himself without the ball and imposing himself during the match.
In Xavi's videos aged 18 or 19, he was asking for the ball all the time.
While Pedri is lazy and playing seek and hide since the age of 18. Imagine him aged 26 when he'll be even less enthusiastic and tired of 10 years of football 24/7.
So, as always = there is hope.
But the areas where Pedri is weak = are usually NOT the areas where players suddenly improve over time.
These traits seem like his "natural" skills.
As one man of wisdom said: "It is what it is"
