Championship Rando Watch Lyall Thomas claims that we're looking at signing Djed Spence this month, in spite of the mild inconvenience of Spence being on loan at Forest this season I vaguely recall Spence being linked with us a couple of seasons ago, presumably because Norwich had been promoted that season so Max Aarons which put a spanner in the works of signing him that season, so there might be something to the spirit of this story - but the whole Forest having him on loan is an obvious issue
Good move all around. The club get a fee for a youth player who’s deal was expiring (he didn’t want to stay) and the player will have more of a chance of breaking into Blackburn’s team for much needed experience than he would have at Spurs.
The suggestion is that the various clubs looking to sign him are going to leave him at Forest. He's already played for two teams this season, making three appearances for Boro before the loan. He can't play for anyone else in this campaign.
The main benefit for us is that, due to the size of the sell-on clause, if he does blow up at Blackburn we can make a Goldilocks offer It's similar to how Marcus Edwards has a 50% sell-on clause, meaning that Guimaraes make as much money if somebody pays £20m for him as they do if we offer £10m, so (in theory) if we offer £12.5m then Guimaraes get the best deal while we also get a bargain ...a bargain that cost us £12.5m more than it could have
If we sign him, it's to be hoped that we have a proper ongoing plan for him, Gil, Sarr and whoever else we now sign under the new 'Emerging Talent' banner headed up by Chris Perkins/Hitchen. These young players need a path to first team football that we've not been good at providing for some time. Skippy went out on loan to Norwich against Mourinho's stated wishes. Whether he'd have progressed by staying here will remain unknown, but recent history suggests that he may very well have wasted an important season, like KWP, Onomah, etc.
Gil and Sarr are (hopefully...) fine as they were signed as first teamers, and Spence would be as well given he's already 21, even though the former's mainly played cameos while the latter is stuck with the flaming wreckage that is Metz this season The issue is the transition between academy and first team which applies to both players produced by our academy as well as prospects brought in such as Devine, Paskotsi, Etete, Santiago, and Sayers (plus the kids at Peterborough and Lewes we've been linked with in the last week or so, if they were to sign)
Yeah some seem to get caught between the two and their career stalls which benefits absolutely nobody
In our case the issue has been self-inflicted, as Poch wouldn't sanction loans for players he felt had futures yet didn't play them either - which is particularly baffling given he was happy to sanction loans for players he didn't think had futures such as Connor Ogilvie or Grant Hall and they ended up at least bringing value back into the academy with their transfer fees while players we in theory could have either had in the first team or made a tidy packet off haven't done so due to their value never increasing The fact we made £8m off Alex Pritchard based off loans at Swindon and Brentford underlines where we went horribly wrong in this period, as we realistically should have made similar on the likes of Sterling, Oakley-Booth, Binks etc etc etc
I think Spurs have been looking at him for a while. It would have to be a buy and loan back deal wouldn’t it as he can’t be registered for a 3rd club within 12 months I heard.
Already mentioned And, as PNP mentioned, it's a non-starter due to rules about playing for more than two clubs in a season
**** Off Ndombele Watch CalcioMercato claim that the dawdling one has rejected a proposed loan to Napoli I'm assuming he hasn't looked at the Serie A table lately
I have to say I am a little surprised that nothing meaningful (in or out) has happened yet. Surely we are not going to end the season with this squad.
Rumours that the fee for Boro’s Spence is around £12m. Think us, goons and one or two others hold an interest in him. We’re also still apparently haggling over a fee for Traore…
You're right of course. I really thought that with Conte on board it would be different this time, if only superficially.
