Rumours mate. Should have been more clear. Tbh I got no idea who Neil Collins is apart from he plays for Burnley
I think we might try and go for both Garner and O'Brien the problem is that Southampton want Garner and West Ham want O'Brien. I can imagine Johnson will be chased by a fair few clubs as well.
O’brien/aaronson do play the same position but there’s a bit of an overlap… o’brien more of a midfielder who prefers 8 but can play elsewhere in midfield… and aaronson a more forward thinking player who plays 8 but can also play in a more attacking role. Given how light we are in midfield there could be room for both. That said it likely is lazy journalism. If forest win we might look at o’brien. If udders win, be interesting to see whether we go for Johnson. There’s a long list of suitors for him but we were apparently one of them. When you look at eze, olise, Bowen, Gallagher etc, standout talents of their years in the champ.. all have looked very at home in the Prem. At his age and goals contribution in that winger/striker role.. there’s going to be a lengthy queue for Johnson and I agree - when you look at fees for Buendia etc… it will require a transfer record for us.
We're joint favourites along with Benfica to sign Tyler Adams. Personally I think the Prem is a bigger draw than the Portuguese League and Adams has played under Marsch so we could just pip this one
he’s the guy that needlessly gave a way a hand ball for the Newcastle penalty… so he must be Leeds.. and he’ll fit right in!
With quite a bit of talk about signing Championship players which of the ones who've moved for big money in recent years would be deemed as successes and also decent value for money ? Buendia £34.56M Watkins £30.6M Benrahma £20.79M Bowen £19.17M Eze £16.02M Olise £8.37M Transfer fees taken from Transermarkt. For comparison; Bamford is listed at costing us £7.11M and Harrison £11.52M both of whom also played in the Championship.
I'd say Bowen was a success as he's been called up to the England squad. There is talent in those lower leagues. You just need to find them and coach them well
All of them. Buendia was going OK until Villa signed Coutinho. Watkins has gone on to play for England. Benrahma has injury issues but was getting rave reviews in a run of games early this season. Bowen has been sensational. Eze (and Olise) have been great at Palace.
wrote an almost identical reply to this and then phone battery went - you saved me the bother of a retype Eze has been crocked this year, so had less publicity. Personally i'm not a huge fan of wadkins and thought buendia was overpriced... but none are flops There's an argument that standing out in the champ may be a better indicator of ability to cut it in the prem, than standing out in another/european league.
Watkins is an interesting case study of recruitment from the lower Leagues. Signed from Exeter in 2017 for £6.5M which is a huge fee for a 21 year old League 2 player and them moved 3 years later to the PL for £30.6M. Current market value is £31.5M and even though he's played for England it's difficult to ever see his value increasing further.
The thing is there are some Gems in the lower league but you'll get 1 or 2 a year. You've then gotta spend your time finding the wheat for the chaff. It takes time. It's easier to hunt around Europe but each has a different level of skill and talent. They might be fantastic in Portugal but the Premier League is a different class.
I think Vardy is a better example of this. Started off in non league moved to Halifax, then Fleetwood. Leicester bought him and now he's priceless to Leicester.
Yes Vardy is definitely another. The reason Watkins stood out though was the size of the fee that Brentford paid given that they're not perceived to be big spenders but in terms of sourcing lower League talent they actually are. They also paid over £5M for Ivan Toney who at the time only had 9 months remaining on his contract at Peterborough but they liked what they saw and got the deal done. Incidentially Toney is one who's done it the other way round as he was at Newcastle before dropping down to L1 for £450K age 22.
The worst thing is there's been plenty of Toney's in the past mainly coming out of Arsenal or Scum. Bradley Johnson was dropped by Arsenal at aged 9 and played for Norwich in the Prem. Sylvan Ebanks-Blake was dropped by Scum and played in the Prem for Wolves.
I an Toney has been tripe everywhere he played and there has been loads of clubs like New astle. Obviously a late bloomer? Going back to Buendia who I have always liked, but Bielsa enquired about him as he was Norwich’s stand out player in the prem. We offered £20m are were blown off but Bielsa refused to pay more and Bielsa had seen him perform in the Argentine squad a few months earlier… Norwich offered us Cantwell too and we blew them off and guess what hes still a Norwich player as Bournemouth have refused to buy him after having him on loan. So not all the best Championship players make it
