I'm ok with both the Parker and Roberts deals. The money saved on Parker's wages can be reinvested in the McDonald transfer and then we'll have a genuinely defensive midfielder. Roberts has about 360 minutes of first team football under his belt and won't sign a new contract so we have no option but let him go. He's getting 40k per week at City. We obviously can't/won't match that so we have to sell. All we can hope for is that we get a large fee with a big sell on percentage and hope Roberts does well with them. I can't see him getting game time ahead of Silva, Nasri, Sterling and Navas any time soon though.
Roberts gone for an undisclosed fee to Man City, so fee speculation goes from £2m to £7m to £11m (including add-ons) Thought he looked brilliant running up and down the wing, good turning speed, stretching those hamstring, looking to Kit for instructions, and then going back to sit on the bench. I suppose the regret most of us have that we didn't get to see what he could do. His infrequent cameos showed he had good close control that frightened defenders, his body strength let him down and was eased off the ball too easily, he has potential to get better, big question will he ? Ray Houghton has said he thinks he is a cross between Wilshire and Liam Brady, praise indeed. We've always been a selling club and suspect if we stay in the Championship, there will be more of our young squad on the move to sit on Premier clubs benches.
There would be a lot of teams in the Championship that would be over the moon to get that kind of money for a player who cost them nothing.
You can see how small he is in that picture. I'd liked for him to have stayed but from the looks of his wages we could never compete. Looks like the club held at 5k because of the alternative and maybe pitched it as choice between the 'right thing' for his development or taking a punt with his career and pocketing £10m over 5 years (I'm guessing its a long contract). We were probably the wrong club for his development anyway, reckon he might go on loan to a Dutch or Portuguese team until he fills out a bit.
If the club think he was another Smalling case, happy with that. And with Kit on it. If the boy doesn't want to play for us, good riddance.
Don't agree at all with "good riddance". I've commented before about how poorly his development has been managed, so will only add that the Club totally messed up not giving him a longer contract last summer. Personally I believe it's a crying shame that we, the fans, will now never get to see him have a decent run in a Fulham shirt.
I saw a quote from the AFC Wimbledon academy coach saying " although we get no money from the Patrick Roberts sale it's still a good advert for our club"
Lets hope my tip for the top is not only given a long contract but lots more game time. "no need to name him"
I'm not nearly as upset with this deal going through as I thought I'd be. If the fee reported is correct then we've done very well. If we cast our minds back to when we sold Smalling, we really had no other youth prospects at the time. Now we still have Hyndman, Christensen, Bettinelli, Williams, Cauley, Dembele, Grimmer and a few more who will go on to big things. Over the past year my opinion on who our best prospect is has shifted from Roberts to Hyndman. Maybe that is due to the apparent mismanagement of Pat but Emerson looks a lot more of a complete player. I think the clubs hands were tied with the three year deal though Cottager. I read somewhere that when offering a 17 year old a professional contract the max you can give is three years and because he turned 17 in February that essentially became a 2 and a half year contract. The only thing we could have done was offer him a new and longer contract this summer which we tried to do. Apart from not playing him enough the club have done everything right here. And as I typed that my mind was cast back to the Huw Jennins (I think) interview about Kerim Frei being thrown in the deep end too early and it hindering his development so maybe we've actually done nothing wrong here.
All valid points FI and you've certainly made rosc's day in rightly highlighting Hyndman. My feelings were from the heart not the head.
This was inevitable but I was not looking forward to the day I found out. I'm just sad I didn't get to see him play much for Fulham. I wish him all the luck and I hope it works out for him. I suspect he will get loaned out immediately - perhaps we haven't seen the last of him.
The fact that the Club managed to, apparently, include a 20% sell on clause covers the bets I suppose.
Sadly I think the mistakes of past... actually scrap that I don't know they aren't still happening, I was far from happy at the close of last season. The absurdity of the last few years will keep coming back to us for a while yet, in a different world we might have held him one more year, got promotion led by our team of starlets, and then sold him for £20m. Who knows the full story, if I was him and my prospects were a,) being managed by the same guy as for the last few years whose taught me all he can and doesn't fancy me as a starter or b,) pocketing a shed load of cash at a better run club, I'd probably make the same decision. I was listening to talk ****e earlier and they did make an interesting point, how many 18 year old put in transfer requests before they have a season under their belt. His situation is undoubtedly influenced by money, but I reckon more than anything he just wanted out. Now we pray the other young players didn't like him. Otherwise he's the first of a few out the door this summer, potentially. I wonder how LVC and Hyndman feel at the moment, not just with Roberts gone but with our new signings who play their positions.
Both LVC and Hyndman seem sensible and professional enough to know that competition for places is a good thing and that they need to step their game up to earn a starting spot.
Mine wasn't a good riddance comment, more of a vent to understand why move at 17 to a club where he will get even less game time. Irrespective of money, it should be about game time. Are there reserve teams that much better than Fulham?
Pat has gone straight out to Australia to meet up with their first team as opposed to going to Spain to meet the U21s. I reckon he'll get some game time in the first team this season. And if he is playing U21s for most of the year I think playing regularly for City U21s is better for him than sitting on the bench for Fulham. At least that way he's playing regularly and developing.
Why should he have been sitting on the bench for us and getting what 15 20min playing time could it have been to do with what I consider an incompetent manager. If KS proves himself I will be the first to eat humble pie and offer my congrats, but I still have a gut feeling he will be gone by Christmas.
