Former Australian international Josh Kennedy has urged would-be critics to give Aaron Mooy the chance to show what he can do at Huddersfield Town.
Mooy, 25, signed for Manchester City in June after a fantastic 2015/16 with A League outfit Melbourne City, and has now been loaned to Town for the duration of the 2016/17 campaign.
Kennedy played alongside Mooy in Melbourne and has backed his decision to make the move to the John Smith's Stadium.
And he believes the biggest challenge that Town's Australian midfielder will face in the Championship is the physicality - as well as the increase in the number of games.
But the former Socceroo, who was capped 36 times by Australia before retiring, believes there is no reason why Mooy cannot play in the Premier League in the future after a successful year at Town.
Said Kennedy: “When it was announced Manchester City had signed him, everyone’s first thought was ‘he’s not going to play’, which is fair enough because everyone had an idea he would get loaned out to play his football.
“From my experience as a player, if Manchester City wanted to sign me and give me a big contract worth millions of dollars and told me ‘we see a lot of potential in you, but we want to loan you out for the first season’, you’d still jump out at that chance.
“Mooysie is still going to play Championship football, he’ll find it a lot tougher than the A-League and he’ll see where he fits in there.
"If he can do the same thing he did at Melbourne City when he’s on loan, then there’s no reason why he can’t step up and play Premier League.
“Not that Championship football is that much better than A-Leagues, but physically the amount of games he plays, I think his eyes will open up a little bit for the first six weeks how much more physical and stronger the players will be and with the way he plays, they’ll definitely want to kick him a bit more than what they did to him in the A-League.”
