Plymouth Argyle may feel regret after decision on future Birmingham City, Luton Town star | OneFootball

The Greens academy product went on to prove them wrong after some stellar performances in the Football League

Decisions on academy graduates can be some of the hardest a football club has to make, with many left ruminating over whether to gamble on a teenager’s progress for months on end.

Will he fulfil his potential? Has he got the right skillset to fit into the team? Does he want it enough? There will be so many ifs, buts and maybes that define many a player’s fledgling career.

Sometimes clubs succeed with those decision, and sometimes they live to regret their decisions, with Plymouth Argyle experiencing the latter as they saw one of their own come back with a vengeance after being released at Home Park.

Isaac Vassell took the Football League by storm for a brief spell in the last decade, while the Pilgrims could only look on as their academy graduate excelled.

Isaac Vassell fails to make the grade at Plymouth Argyle

Having come up through the ranks at Home Park, Vassell made his debut for a beleaguered Argyle side in a 1-1 draw with Shrewsbury Town at the start of the 2011/12 season, as he came on as a late substitute for Tom Hitchcock.

Having endured back-to-back relegations from the Championship to League Two, the Green Army were happy just to have a team support on that opening day, such were the major financial issues looming over them during the past 12 months.

Players were going unpaid, the administrators were moving in, and the squad that were still at the club were scrambled together ahead of that trip to Shropshire, with Carl Fletcher’s equaliser that day celebrated like a cup-winning moment.

The heart of the club was still beating, with the fanbase pulling together like never before, with Vassell given brief moments to shine alongside the likes of Jordan Copp, Jared Simms and Curtis Nelson after emerging from the academy.

But all in all, the winger’s game time was limited, even with a squad stretched to its limits, with player-manager Fletcher only using him six times as a substitute, before sending him out to get some game time in non-league.

Having done enough to earn himself a year’s extension at the club in the summer of 2013, first-team opportunities were still unforthcoming, with an inevitable drop down into non-league following the year after, with Cornish side Truro City only too happy to take him off Argyle’s hands.

Non-league spell resurrects Isaac Vassell’s career before Luton Town move

Leaving the full-time footballing life can never be easy for someone who has come up through the ranks in the Football League, with the hopes and dreams of carving a career in the game already looking like slipping away in his early 20s.

But when faced with that scenario, a player can either sink or swim, and Vassell dropped into the sixth tier with a point to prove, as he worked tirelessly on his game, and wreaked havoc for his new employers.

Ten goals in 39 games from his wide position was evidence of a player playing with fire in his belly, and not allowing the drop into the semi-professional game effect his vision of making it at the top.

That commitment was rewards just two years after leaving Argyle, as Luton Town snapped the forward up, with the Hatters in the midst of their own rise back up the footballing pyramid.

With both club and player looking for redemption, the two were a match made in heaven, with Vassell carving through League Two defences upon his return to the Football League, with a 14-goal haul in all competitions making the EFL stand up and take notice.

Five goals in four games through January and February is proof of what a red-hot run of form the forward was on, while a typically brazen performance when Argyle made the trip to Kenilworth Road made the Greens realise just what they had missed out on.

Birmingham City move marks remarkable Isaac Vassell redemption arc

While the Greens were upwardly mobile themselves that season - and eventually sealing promotion - Vassell was proving himself to be a player worthy of a much-higher division, as Birmingham City lured him to St Andrew’s, with Championship football just around the corner.

Straight away, the explosive forward was making his mark on games in the second tier, with his direct nature leaving defenders in knots, as well as netting the winner in a 1-0 victory over Sheffield Wednesday in just his fifth league game for the club.

But while the frontman came flying out the blocks, his body wasn’t quite up to the rigours of Championship football, with a ruptured cruciate knee ligament seeing ruled out from October 2017 until the end of the season, with his next appearance coming in January 2019.

While he still had the same attacking intent, things never quite recovered for Vassell, who left for Cardiff City the following summer, although just two substitute appearances in three years tells its own story of his time in Wales.

When he was firing on all cylinders, there was a time when the wide man was almost unplayable, and if he had stayed at Argyle, things could have been very different for both player and club.

Vassell proved just how to overcome setbacks in a footballer’s early career though, and proved the Pilgrims wrong after their early judgment call.