The prerequisite for a club bringing back a player is usually whether he was any good in the first place.
On the surface, James Wilson doesn’t meet that criterion. Certainly not to a section of the fanbase.
To them, he was a striker that struggled to score goals. During his season-long loan at Aberdeen from Manchester United and over 32 appearances, Wilson hit the back of the net just four times.
Yet Derek McInnes was desperate to sign him on a permanent contract. The question is, then, why?
Certainly, the 23-year-old had his moments. A fine performance against Celtic in Glasgow back in September in which he made intelligent runs, held up the ball and proved troublesome to Jack Hendry and Dedryck Boyata.
But there needs to be more signs, more moments and there were. Wilson also enjoyed a right good game against Hibs on the last day of the season.
He scored, too, in the 2-1 victory at Easter Road as he operated down the right and managed an 88 per cent pass completion rate. See, there’s that retaining possession positive again.
Wilson also possesses a fine delivery, with the best example of this coming in the defeat at Ibrox near the end of the season when his floated free-kick from the right eluded every Rangers defender. McInnes would have been wishing his attackers hadn’t managed to miss it, too.
He’s fast, fleet-footed and can evade an opposition player almost at will. The Englishman stretches the game, picking up the ball deep before going on runs that gives his defensive team-mates a breather; a must-have attribute for any McInnes side that often likes to counter-attack against stronger opposition.
Examples of this were witnessed against Hibs in February. His goal against Motherwell last September in which he picked up the ball and turned before slotting the ball under the goalkeeper was an exquisite move and finish.
But the point to all this is that these moments have still been too few. There’s a player in there and McInnes clearly knows it.
So why haven’t the supporters seen enough evidence? Wilson was highly rated at United under Louis van Gaal. They believed he was going somewhere, and rather to Aberdeen, perhaps to the Old Trafford giants’ first team. At least to a club also operating in the English Premier League.
The answer as to why he didn’t may perhaps never be known. But freed from the burden of being a Manchester United player – a man on £30,000 a week and stalked by ghosts of achievements past that seem to haunt even the more prodigious than Wilson – we may yet see the talent turn to triumph.
