I love all the moral outrage when anyone is rumoured to be interested in any of "our" young players. Never mind the fact that we have also cherry picked young talent from The Football League's academies and first teams on a regular basis for many years. It's just the way things work folks. Talent has a price and people will look to pay it.
Yep, good point, but it's still annoying. Tbh, it's even more annoying with senior players. Say a whole squad do well, because the manager's a good 'un, and he gets the whole playing together, but they just miss promotion. That team often gets cherry picked to destruction, and possibly even the manager goes too, unless the club has the ambition and financial backing to resist. Looks familiar..? Try the AFC Bournemouth of last season..! The conundrum is... how is a club to progress if it keeps getting knocked back by losing its assets. Of course they are rewarded with money, but money doesn't head a ball in from a cross to win the game, and perhaps a promotion. With Saints possibly parting with their future prospects, even for biggish money, they are selling future Club success. It has always been the case before, but perhaps not from now on.
Chambers sounds like a goodun to go with the others. Hear he's pretty versatile too - plays wide right, centre mid and centre half. Our youth setup is as good as anywhere, so doubt he'll go anywhere until he knows where he stands Same goes for the other lads.
I think most people see this point but because of the amount of times teams have come in and bought our players when they've barely played season for us and it starts to grate.
he has now played 4 or 5 times for england and has almost a goal a game, not sure what position he is played in - probably on the wing. england play again weds and saturday. the team thay started today consisted of 2 saints, 2 villa, 2 chelsea,1 arsenal,1 derby 1 palace and 2 not a scooby do.
The main reason for youngsters to leave our first class academy is quite simple - money both for themselves and their parents and nothing to do with footballing reasons as has previously been stated, we have one of the best in the country and hopefully (fingers crossed) we might even be able to offer them premiership football but with our wage structure (and I'm fully behind us having one) other clubs are willing to throw serious money at these youngsters and their families. End of storey! The best way of putting clubs off is by announcing and putting in the youngsters contracts, a minimum selling price of say £10m. Pay that or do one!
Don't get me wrong, I'm entirely in the same bus/boat/hovercraft. I used to take regular trips to watch U18s and Reserves and I love tracking the development of young players. I just remember when we were the bigger club pinching academy lads from others (in many ways, we still are!). The game is the game, and that's it. Barcelona lost Cesc when he was a wee'un but also signed a slew of young lads from other regional teams. We may have lost a few yoofs to larger teams, however we also nicked McGoldrick, Blackstock, Best, Stephens, Lallana and others from smaller teams who couldn't hold on to them. You live by the sword, you die by the sword, it sometimes feels like a lot of our fans just want to play the victim forever.
Probably. I know they've done well this season but I don't think the future looks particularly promising for them. I think they'll do a Villa next season.
They should be alright.They've got some good players there like Cabaye,Ben Arfa,the two Demba's,Santon...Not a bad team
This is true.., And i accept that youngsters move on to improve there Potential... etc.. But it burns me up when the same team Consistently sniff around our academy.. As there's isn't very good.
First off Calum Chambers has been at the academy since he was 8 (U9s). Shaw, Ward-Prowse, Chambers, Reed, Gape and McQueen all in the current first year scholars and so U17 came through together from that age at least. They have played together for 9 years with a Saints shirt on. All but Gape have now got pro contracts (Shaw is waiting for his 17th birthday before it comes into force) Dunno what you mean about size? Admittedly Gape, Shaw and Reed are smaller but Chambers and McQueen are almost 6 feet tall and still growing. Both the latter are good in the air and very strong going forward as are Shaw and Gape. McQueen who is a leftie probably has the edge on skill (he nutmegs players for fun) and in the air whilst Chambers looks stronger on the ground and in confidence going for goal. This group of lads plus late joiners Turnbull, Mugabe (both over 6 foot) and Rowe as well as second year scholars Moore, Young and Stephens (both latter are 6 footers) make a very good team. They could've gone all the way in the youth cup. Ironically they beat the potential finalists Man United, Chelsea and drew with Blackburn in the league. These lads will stay at Saints if the success and rewards are good enough. That's up to Cortese, the coaches and the boys themselves.
