I can understand players leaving a club for money, coaching, a challenge, or mates but will never understand why a player would leave for "success".
Even if he does taste success at his new club, surely it must feel a bit empty - like he's just rode in on the coattails.
The nature of the salary cap means that generally teams get their taste of finals football every 5 years or so - wouldn't it be that much sweeter with your mates that you've toiled for years to get there with?
Maybe I'm just old-fashioned.
I know what you mean but I think players are scared that if they are playing in a shit team their form will drop off a cliff (we could all cite dozens of examples). I imagine that playing for a club you love comes 2nd to establishing a long and lucrative career with the prospect of representative football. The clubs they love would have no problem dropping them if they don't perform, so if the club isn't helping them perform to the best of their ability then it should also work the other way.
At the end of the day, I have no real negativity to any player for ever wanting to leave a club. There are millions of things going on that we don't see, so we can't really pass judgement on their reasons for leaving.
What I do legitimately get pissed off by is players dragging the club through the mud as they are walking out the door. In any industry, you should never openly badmouth your previous employer or the people you were working with. If you want to whinge about it, whinge to your friends and family, not a f**king journalist. And even more so, if you are under contract with your employer and you want out, don't then put in a half arsed effort and deliberately f**k things up so they let you go asap.
