Vladimir Weiss     21     Midfielder/Winger     Espanyol

Talented midfielder Weiss was on the periphery of first team action at Manchester City when everything changed in the summer of 2008. Subsequently stifled at Eastlands, Weiss headed off to Bolton and then to Glasgow, rejecting the opportunity to sign for Celtic in order to don the blue of Rangers on a season-long loan.

We considered this a good move for a player whom hopes in the blue half of Manchester had been high and fully expected Weiss to thrive in the SPL. However, despite a good start, Weiss never really progressed in the way many had hoped. A foot injury brought his season to a premature finale and a promised bang had delivered little more than a meek fizz.

A return to City in the summer offered no further opportunities for the Bratislava born winger and again Weiss has been farmed out on loan, this time to Espanyol. It’s now an inescapable fact that the loan moves look more like City running Weiss’s contract down, rather than any attempt to develop a talented youngster. Whether Weiss is capable of performing at Espanyol to a level that would trouble Roberto Mancini’s first team plans is open to conjecture, but it is a shame that development in a city he called home was disrupted just when things were beginning to happen. A regular at international level, the career of Vladimir Weiss has stalled. Badly.

"A player with every trick in the book, but no end product" - Stefan Bienkowski (The Oval Log)

"Shown real flashes of skill, pace to burn and has excited.  Poor delivery though - awful in fact.  Been told to learn Spanish." - David Cartlidge (Spanish Football.info)

D     Needs a permanent move and a fresh start but there’s still time