You don’t think there is a difference between the Southampton to Bath, Swindon or Bournemouth (none of whom had a premier league club at the time) and one 4 hours away taking players from all over the country ? I don’t think anyone said it was the “end of football”. But they aren’t really the same scenario
If you think that's an issue, I'd strongly suggest that you don't look at where our Academy players originate, or played their football previous.
Once again it would appear like you aren’t reading what people are saying (as seems to have been the case above) I made no statement over whether or not it was “an issue”. It was just not there Just that it is not the same scenario as the examples set out (Bath, Swindon) etc. Which is objectively true YOUR examples might I add. Moving the goalposts it would seem. If there were good examples of us signing players from other premier league academies, who they wanted to keep, from the other side of the country then why didn’t you use them and not your examples from circa 20 years ago where we got players from football league clubs within our region of the country
You also don’t know what incentives get offered to kids and their families to move to Man City aswell. The club paying for private education regardless if the kid makes it or not is something I’ve read they offer
I’m not saying that there’s any implication they’ve done anything wrong… seems that the lad has made a choice… not an easy choice as I’m sure there was part of him that was torn… but there’s an interesting battle raging between Man City and the EPL… I think the Times have reported on it… seems in many areas Man City are playing it pretty fast and loose with quite a few of the financial rules and it all feeds into the FFP farce that’s ongoing for them. If they are prepared to bend and flex the rules financially this may either extend to them flexing other rules or if found guilty of anything untoward, they may get sanctioned in terms of youth recruitment. Like I said…. No evidence that anything has happened here other than a choice for the lad… but the sad state of affairs the EPL are in with the big clubs wielding way too much power.
So based on Ralph’s comments after the Cardiff game we want a full back a “number 6” (basically a CM) and maybe a centre back. Based on previous comments from him and the loan market safe to assume 2 of those will be loans from PL teams. Williams for full back and I’d say the centre mid aswell as those were the positions he identified as definitely needing. “Maybe a centre back” is probably based on whether Vestergaard leaves and of course if Ings leaves then I’d expect a forward to come in. If both leave then we might have some funds to bring in a couple more aswell as we can improve all over the pitch really if we had the money available.
Absolutely spot on! This happens a quite a lot on here & (IMO obviously) very unnecessary. We / most of us get the gist even if the actual wording probably isn’t perfect.
surely the next hmrc issue right there. Because that is a massive benefit. And sounds like it is “paid” even if the kid ceases to be “employed”. I guess a loophole might be out there but it sounds super suspect
If we are after a CM and a fullback. And we were previously interested in Maitland Niles then surely it would make a lot of sense to bring him in as one of our loan options. Obviously he wants to be thought of as a CM, and we can primarily bring him in as that, but his versatility would be very useful for us given our lack of depth at fullback. If we brought in Williams as the other loan option that seems to make sense to me at least. About as minimal outlay as we can get for two decent and versatile young players who cover the positions we need, and may be interested in joining us longer term if they do well with us. Then any further transfer movements are likely to be dependant on if Vestergaard or Ings leave. I personally would still like another attacking option to come in regardless of sales, but that's perhaps unlikely.
Is Brandon Williams actually any good? Been doing a bit of trawling on twitter and quite a few Utd fans seem happy to see him offloaded permanently. His CV seems limited to 4 appearances last season and one MOTM performance back in 2019. And we would take him on at what salary...?
Agree with most of this from a Saints perspective. I suspect AM-N wouldn’t be interested in a cover role though (given he chose Big Sam’s WBA over us before) so cant see him going for us now
Also sounds like AMN wants a permanent move and has a few suitors. Arsenal apparently keen to sell him and Willock this window
Who is linked with him permanently? Obviously palace as they are the Manchester United of the bottom half in terms of transfer rumours
Saw Leicester, Newcastle and Burnley. But who knows, most clubs are skint so not really an ideal time to be selling anyone. Arsenal apparently want £20m for Willock which I’m sure a lot of teams would’ve done in a heartbeat after his season last year, not atm though with nobody having money
