FFS. Close thread IMO. This is pointless.
Maybe I should sum this up.
He is hugely talented, he gives his all on game day, which sometimes ends up like last night, and other times ends up having a shocker.
IF his attitude and dedication does not improve, his career will likely end up with increasingly more bad than good, as his game won't develop, he won't improve his negatives, and any advantages his talent gives him will be found out and well known by defences. Anthony Milford, Dave Taylor, Chris Sandow are players with immense talent, who got very lucrative contracts based on their talent, but fizzled out once their talent base was not built upon and got exhausted.
There is the very slim chance that he ends up like a Hodges, was a poor trainer, but remained elite during his career, but remember he had an unparalleled competitive streak that drove him to constantly improve. I don't see that in Cobbo.
IF, like Cult suggests, the club rallies behind him and manages to educate him on the values of training and hard work, as he matures it will come easier for him and he may well turn out to be the player to match his talents, and go on to have a long career at the pointy end, or even become elite. That's what we all want, Cult included. But there is also the chance that the club can do everything in their power and it won't make much difference, people are wired a certain way and re-programming doesn't always overcome that, especially not in the medium to long term. That is what Cult is warning us of.
Poor games or patches of poor form don't prove anything, young players go through that. But similarly, a hat-trick game-winning effort doesn't prove anything either, as that's just talent shining through. The fact that he's had games like this since his debut just shows that he's always had this amazing talent, it's the gap between his good and bad games that need to level out to prove he's improving, only time is going to show that.