Chris Rigg has emerged as a transfer target for Italian outfit Lazio in recent days
I don’t remember specifically what I was doing the summer after I turned 18. There was probably a lot of wandering around twiddling my thumbs, killing time, waiting for something to happen. But whatever it was, I do know this - I wasn’t getting myself ready to line up for Sunderland in the Premier League.
Of course, nor were you. Nor were the vast, overwhelming majority of folk. It is about as close to a universal truth as you can feasibly get, because it is not something that people do. Unless you happen to be Chris Rigg.
The Black Cats starlet is the improbable wunderkind who makes for the exception that proves the rule. Only now, as of literally last week, is he old enough to drink and vote and watch Pulp Fiction, and yet Rigg is preparing to pit his wits against the self-styled greatest top flight on the planet. Or at least, that is the hope.
If various reports are to be believed, Italian giants Lazio are circling with intent, and in fairness to the boys in baby blue, you can understand why. I won’t bore you with another schmaltzy, eulogistic retelling of Rigg’s rise to prominence on Wearside, but needless to say that it has been meteoric, and made all the more astounding by his tender age. There aren’t many 17-year-olds who get to take selfies on the pitch at Wembley, fewer still who do so with champagne and pieces of golden confetti in their hair.
In the aftermath of that promotion triumph, perhaps Rigg has earned the right to take the plunge and further his personal development on the continent. Jobe Bellingham certainly did just that. But here’s thing; he shouldn’t.
Casual observers and critics from without the red and white bubble may cry bias, but there are genuine and justifiable reasons to support the notion that Rigg should stay put for the time being. For one thing, whereas Bellingham - both the player and the brand - had reached a point whereby a move to a European colossus felt like an uncomfortable inevitability, his former teammate is not quite there yet. That is no snide dig, by the way, but the fact of the matter is that Rigg’s youth still brings with it a dash of inconsistency. Some weeks the teenager is borderline unplayable, on other occasions he veers modestly towards anonymity.
Again, that is just an unavoidable symptom of his inexperience. Rigg is an immense talent - the kind who can go as far as he wants in the professional game if all of the requisite pieces fall as they should - but he still needs to be honed somewhat. Where better to iron out those proverbial kinks than at his boyhood club, under a head coach in Regis Le Bris who evidently understands him on an implicit level?
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And then, of course, there is the other great argument to be made for him staying at the Stadium of Light - the one alluded to earlier. This is the Premier League we’re talking about; the pinnacle, the zenith, the promised land. It is the destination that Sunderland have been grafting and grinding towards for eight purgatorial years. To walk away now, surely it would take a truly special alternative. More special than Lazio, you would hope.
Rigg is only going to get better and better as time ticks by, and the best way for him maintain this steep trajectory that he finds himself on is to test his mettle against the most preeminent players that he can - to rub shoulders with them and learn by their example. Sunderland, for the first time, can now offer him that opportunity.
And even if worst comes to worst and the Black Cats find themselves relegated back to the Championship next season, Rigg will still - lest we forget - have only just turned 19. His entire career will be ahead of him, and he will have already banked a campaign’s worth of Premier League experience.
It is only natural that a young player of his ilk garners attention from far and wide, and it would be entirely naive of us Mackems to believe otherwise. In a sense, it is a huge compliment - a reflection of Rigg’s irrepressible pedigree coming to fruition. But right here and now, at the time of writing, Sunderland still remains the best place for him to be learning craft.
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