Irish! Yep... I think £7m would be ok actually - there's a good chance he could be worth a hell of a lot more in a couple of years.
Probably Johnson but Bradley would play when we went more narrow through the middle are the expense of Brady.
It appears I'm confusing him with someone else. I thought he was born in England but had Irish relatives. Turns out he's all Irish.
....or most of the Irish national squad under Jack Charlton - Andy O'Townsend and Tony O'Cascarino for example
What matters is who is the better footballer. If Brady is better, and he probably is, then I see no problem in his taking a regulars place. We all have our favourite players who we believe undroppable, and we are invariably wrong.
Apparently Boro have tabled a bid of £4.5m for Murphy. That's crazy for a 32 year old who's had one good season
If you were in the binners shoes would you take it though? Good money for an aging player, but their whole game is built to pump long to him. Even if they got to spend all of it would they get any better? Clearly they can improve with the Mings money as he was bang average and not critical to their hoofball, but Murphy might just be worth more than that to them. As for Josh or Jacob I wonder how much it would cost someone to buy players with their potential? Another season of limited opportunity or loan spell and might they want to move on? Bah!
I agree GM - it's a close call. That cost of £4.5m to Middlesbrough might not matter much if by buying Murphy they knock out a key competitor for the race to promotion
Sadly, victims of the club's recent success, General. Had we stayed in the championship, I'm sure one or both would have been involved, but to 'risk' youngsters with what we now have at stake may well be a bridge too far. It also re-asks the question "what the hell is the point of having a cat 1 academy, if none of the products thereof ever get to make it to the first team"?
I see Distin has joined Bournemouth. I think that's a good signing for them tbh. He's old, but from what I've seen of him he's still got it.
In terms of our current defence, it would have been a good signing for us! Especially as, like Mulumbu, he was released by his former club and therefore a freebie!
The need is still there in my book. We have not long been Cat 1 and those coming through who will truly benefit from improvements/upgrades to the youth system won't be seen for a while as yet. The goal is of course to be churning them out like Southampton, who not only have had a number of good players in their team from their academy, but also sold a number of youngsters on for very hefty profits. We need to ensure that the football played in the academy is also tactically similar to the first team so that they can come through with a club ethos if you will. The Swansea structure for example where they now have a way of playing and the managers, players et al are hired, coached and directed that way. For some of our youngsters there is still time to mature too. I still think that you may see at least one Murphy bombing down City's wing on a regular basis, but look at Redmond, he is still maturing and until the tail end of last season still looked raw at championship level. He is only a year older but still developing, same for the Murph's. Their time will come! Bah!
To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if the category 1 academy is doing ok already given the loan fees for the young players. If we're to sell a couple of the youngsters for a few hundred thousand here and there, the status ends up not costing you much. It only takes one player to come through the ranks every three years or so and sell on quite big and all of a sudden you're making profit. It is risky, but frankly for the cost I think it's one of the risks we should be taking as there are so many in football
Any one else mentioned the Joseph Baffo rumour? A promising youngster but not too likely to trouble the first eleven? Bah!
Distin will be 38 in December and he certainly didn't pull up any trees with Everton last season. I think he's had it personally and would question how good a signing that is by Bournemouth, certainly in terms of his on pitch contributions anywhere as I've no doubt an experienced head will have something to offer in the dressing room at least. Can't imagine we'd have shown any interest in him, thankfully in my opinion.
