Deulofeu showed more at younger age and failed too, Samper was considered the smart Barca DNA player and failed. People expected Roberto to fail and yet he succeeded and the list goes on and on fpr both sides.
The bottom line is we don't know how good Alena is gonna turn and how long it will take for his development, and while I am being optimistic about him I will understand if our board won't have him as a reason to pass on a chance to get the best midfielder in the world cup winning team
Deulofeu is an attacker who relied heavily on his ability to dribble in order to be a success. When his dribble success rate fell, his usefulness vanished. We learned this lesson in later years by looking at the likes of Adama and Halilovic and knowing they would fail as well, but Alena has nothing in common with Deulofeu as a player.
Samper "failed" because he was given shit tier loans while we were given the pleasure of watching Gomes and Arda stink up the place for years. The injury certainly didn't help. Contrary to what most people believe I still think he can be a useful squad player for us, I don't believe he's anywhere near as bad as people think and am hopeful he can prove the haters wrong.
Roberto is pretty much a freak accident, although when he was promoted after Thiago left I was pretty hyped for him...
Generally speaking, the list of examples people have for X or Y player failing has nothing at all to do with the situation at hand, almost as if Alena is not Halilovic, Adama, Deulofeu, etc. and is instead our current most promising prospect. I'm not personally saying we shouldn't chase Pogba, but suggesting Alena is some sort of flop as so many have been doing (Particularly since most of the casuals on this board have just seen Puig for the first time) before he's even started here because "Herpa derp Halilovic was the next Messi!" grinds my gears.
