Aaron Mooy will be loaned out to English Championship side Huddersfield Town for the 2016-17 season. This was an inevitable outcome from his transfer from Melbourne City to “big brother” club Manchester City.
The question is, will this help or hinder Mooy’s football career?
Firstly, it’s wonderful that Mooy’s considerable talents have been recognised on the back of a superb A-League season with City.
Socceroos coach Ange Postecoglou rated Mooy as the best player in the A-League – that’s best player, not best Australian player, as he pointedly said to the Fox Sports panel before Australia’s most recent World Cup qualifying games.
Mooy’s move to Europe was foreseeable from a long way out, and on face value, going to Manchester City under the stewardship of Pep Guardiola, arguably the best manager in world football, is a dream move.
However, only pipe dreamers believed Mooy was bought by Manchester’s blue half to slot straight into the midfield alongside the likes of David Silva, Fernandinho, Kevin de Bruyne and (perhaps) Ya Ya Toure. He was always going to be loaned out elsewhere. So what are the pros and cons for Mooy in settling into life in Yorkshire with Huddersfield?
The first point we need to consider is not so much whether football in the English second tier is of a better quality than the A-League. Instead, it should be whether Mooy’s game will be tested by his new surrounds. The answer to that is a resounding yes.
Mooy will now be playing in a league with a 46 game season, not including cup competitions. Physically, he will be tested by both that and the faster pace of the game that what he was used to in the A-League.
While there is an argument against players of Mooy’s skill-set being plonked into the frenetic pace of the English Championship, it is still a league that produces great skill and precision when it’s needed. Imagine then that Mooy not only keeps his vision and passing range but is able to make the right decision in even quicker time.
Competitively, the experience will steel Mooy as well. For all its attributes (and I have said in previous articles that the 2015-16 A-League season was the best in its history), the A-League is a competition where ten teams fight for six finals spots. The English Championship has the same number of ‘finals’ spots but there are 24 teams.
If you subscribe to the belief that playing second tier football in England won’t make Mooy a better player, there is no doubt it will make him a fitter one – and I talk in respect of his Socceroo career rather than his club ambitions.
A quick check of the Socceroos next round of World Cup qualifiers sees them play six of the ten games outside of the normal A-League season, with the home game against Japan only a week after the domestic season begins.
Had Mooy stayed at Melbourne City, or had he moved to Manchester City and seen no game time, one of the Socceroos most influential players would have had little to no competitive matches for 70 per cent of the Socceroos qualifying campaign.
Instead, by the time Australia play Iraq on September first, Mooy will have had a full pre-season, five League fixtures and a League Cup tie to play in, presuming he is fit and selected (the latter would be a given – Manchester City don’t loan out players to have them ride the pine).
So far so good. But there are a few doubts about Mooy’s loan move, most of them stylistic. There is still a temptation for English clubs to “revert to type” when things aren’t going so well.
If Huddersfield start to slide down the Championship table, there will be an emphasis on survival over skill, on substance over style. Artistry and the subtle skills Mooy employed to dazzling effect last season will be abandoned in favour of a down-in-the-trenches approach that won’t make use of Mooy’s best assets. It’s not a certainty but it is a probability.
While Mooy has already tasted the English style in his previous overseas foray, the rigours of a long season battling against the drop are not tailor-made for honing and refining the skills that make Mooy the best local player since the Golden Generation.
The great unknown in all of this is what Manchester City’s ultimate intentions are for arguably Australia’s most valuable asset. At 25, Mooy is close to the peak years of a footballer’s career, if not right in the middle of them. If it is City’s intention to farm Mooy out in order to bring him into the fold in 2017-18, this could well be the making of Australia’s next superstar. Most of us will be hoping that Pep sees what Ange does.
Stevo
Roar Rookie
Mooy is head and shoulders above Davidson. That's at least a good start.
Terrier T
Guest
Interesting to read the above thoughts but clearly no one has paid much attention to who the Huddersfield Town's manager is, nor read about the footballing revolution he's in the midst of creating. David Wagner, was the right hand man and best friend to Jürgen Klopp, and often given credit for being one of the architects of Dortmunds 'gengenpressin' style. When things get tough at Huddersfield they pass a little faster, run a little harder and play themselves out of trouble. Just hoping with the size and strength of the squad Mooy can hold down a starting birth and does better than Jason Davidson, the other Socceroo at Hudds who can't get a game!
apaway
Roar Guru
I was keeping it positive pacman because I believe it is, but also because this is a really important step for a player regarded as potentially one of our best ever.
pacman
Guest
I hope you are correct apaway. Some of your reasoning, however, flies in the face of Luke Bratten's experiences last English season. He was farmed out by Man City, and he saw no first team action at Bolton. Bolton were, admittedly, in the 'horrors" when Luke arrived, but they commenced the season with a recent history virtually identical with the history The Terriors will carry with them into the upcoming season. Presumably Man City are paying Mooy a higher salary than they did Bratten. If this is, in fact, the case, then I would feel more assured regarding Mooy's future.
The Phantom Commissioner
Roar Rookie
The dream scenario for Mooy would be that he (and Huddersfield) have a great season playing nice football and push for promotion sparking more interest for his services. The nightmare is if they get off to a horror run and the manager who brought him there gets sacked and Huddersfield completely change their approach and he gets left in limbo. I have absolutely no doubt he'll make it in the championship and in Europe, of all the elite aussie A-League players that have gone on to have good careers there nobody ever came close to performing at the level Mooy did last season and the A-league is at a much higher level than when Kruse. Oar and Leckie went over. His performances in the past 3 friendlies answered a few questions for me too. He was outstanding against England, was very good in the first game against Greece and did ok in the second. Greece in a nod to his first game really suffocated the space in Melbourne but he was still our most influential player, unfortunately his normally excellent set pieces were a little off that night.
Stevo
Roar Rookie
If you're any good you'll make it. Starting with the Terriers and proving himself is a step that CFG have probably thought long and hard about. The CFG brains trust can keep a close watch on him to monitor his development since they have a big stake in this project. No problem. Just itching to see him play.