Personally I disagree...I thought he would have made a cracking right back in the mould of Gary Neville.
However, he wasted a lot of time between 2011 and 2014 playing in a crap league.
He should have gone on loan or been pushed into the first team earlier.
I think he just stagnated and that wrecked him.
There was absolutely nothing (pace, reading of game, tackling, attitude, leadership) that prevented him from making it except opportunity.
I still believe we lost an excellent prospect.
The biggest issue for me was him being moved into midfield, because he ‘could’ do it, not ‘should’. That’s where he played for his other clubs as well, so it’s no surprise he never fulfilled his potential as he had all the attributes to become an accomplished Premier League defender, at least to the Lindelof standard.
It’s a weird obsession that football collectively had in this country at the turn of the decade; Jack Rodwell was also an immensely talented central defender at Everton who was perhaps deemed ‘too good’ of a footballer to play at the back so instead naively pushed ito midfield, so the likes of Smalling and Jones were instead projected as the future of England’s defence and set us back 5 years in transition from Terry, King, Ferdinand etc.
Stones recently for City, and even Rio for a brief few games around about 2005 (I think) showed that it’s one thing being an accomplished ball-playing defender compared to an elite midfield pivot.
Rodwell and Thorpe are now spending their peak years in limbo because of such idiocy, which is a shame.
Regarding Garner, I also think his ceiling will be higher if he steps back into defense too.