About a year ago in my debut column I lauded the talents of Barcelona’s Munir Al Haddadi.

If memory serves me correctly, I described him as a rough diamond that needed a little polishing.

Unfortunately, for both player and club, the polish hasn’t yet been applied, with Munir not making quite the impact expected and therefore remaining just a squad player at this juncture.

The potential for greatness still very definitely exists, but having the potential and fulfilling it are two very different beasts.

Where the youngster’s development has perhaps suffered is because of Barca’s absolute need to play all of Lionel Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez when fit.

You can’t blame Luis Enrique — 122 goals from your strike force in one season speaks volumes. In 2015 alone, “MSN” have 87 goals, which is three more than any of the teams in Europe’s top five leagues! Real Madrid are closest with 84 goals between their entire squad.

So, while Munir has to content himself with an extended spell on the sidelines, the focus shifts back to La Masia.

It’s been seven long years since a graduate from Barca’s academy truly made the impact that the club desire. Pedro Rodriguez and Sergio Busquets in 2008 were arguably the last to do so.

So step forward Alejandro “Alex” Grimaldo, a name already known to many.

Barca B’s captain holds the record for being the youngest player ever to represent the reserve side at just 15 years. Now 19, his rise to the top has been extremely well managed and as such the focus on his development hasn’t been quite so intense.

The expectancy is still there from a club desperate to reassure its fan base that the academy can still produce players of sufficient quality, but there isn’t so much of a rush to integrate Grimaldo.

He is far too good for the Spanish third tier, where Barca B currently languish after an appalling 2014/15 campaign, but not yet good enough for permanent inclusion at senior level.

A left-back by trade, Grimaldo is diligent and workmanlike and fits the Barca template like hand-in-glove. A mild, unassuming individual, his football does the talking.

As Jordi Alba remains a fixture at present, with both Adriano Correia and Jeremy Mathieu able to step into the breach when required, there’s little point in bringing the player through now, only for him to suffer the same fate as Munir.

The sheer weight of expectation won’t faze him, but sitting on the bench indefinitely certainly will, and his natural game will suffer accordingly.

We should expect to see him in the early stages of the Copa del Rey this season, perhaps even in the Champions League if there are any “dead rubber” group games. If injuries take hold, we might even see how he fares over half a dozen games.

But the likelihood is we will be kept waiting until the beginning of the 2016/17 season to see Grimaldo break out.

He will be worth the wait.

— The writer is a freelance journalist and Spanish football expert