Presently, Maja would seem the better choice of the two, but I'm not sure you're reading the situation right when you throw your £5m figure about. Sunderland are talking a big game about not needing to sell, but in reality he's out of contract in the summer, so the only choice they have now is how much they feel his presence could be the difference between getting promoted or not versus how much of a fee they may be able to wrangle out of someone, which wouldn't likely be much as any Premiership team who might want him are likely to be happy to wait as he won't walk into their first team, with the possible exception of Crystal Palace. I'm not sure what kind of transfer offers have been placed already, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were sub-£1m, purely due to the time left on his contract leaving Sunderland in a weak negotiating position. Hogan is likely to be on pretty hefty wages at Villa and it would be a big ask to expect him to be a 20+ goal a season striker that those wages should justify. Villa might also want a fee to save face/to partially address their horrible finances that came about from gambling on promotion and not getting it. If Tammy does move on, their chances become even fainter than they are now.
If we paid £5 or £5m for Maja if he don’t score within the first 45 minutes some fans would say he’s wasted money again. But in fairness I think he will be going to someone who will pay a bit more than we could afford.
My point was more if we have too many of them the opportunity for them to play is limited , we are attractive because we have a pathway for younger players to work their way into the first team, too many would stop that.
A fair point - you certainly don't want to cannibalise the opportunities available to your young players, which is perhaps part of the reason we were willing to sell McCoulsky.
Something really fishy going on all round here "SIGNED" because Doidge was GOING PERMANENT AT BOLTON BUT it has been stated that FGR knew there was a problem with that deal as Vince STATES he has been working on it but couldn't do anything in any case other than to leave him there "on loan" or call him back, all along the latter was obviously the obvious! So S McC has signed [ been hoodwinked ] to be a second or third string! at a div 2 club! If I was S McC I WOULD not play or be in the squad until it is sorted …..
Klopp played a 16 yo last night and he played very well, although they lost. 19-20 yo players are apparently too young to play for us - unless it's Lloyd Kelly.
Joe Morrell played for us when he was 16 and was clearly too young. I wouldn't read too much into the fact that Liverpool played a kid younger than those we play.
there are quite a few under 18's that get game time, I can see the object of "farming them out" but as Kelly has shown age isn't everything, Rashford Martial and a few other prem teams … including national ones have played them to great effect! Teams do their homework … and adjust according to whom they play, some are good at it ...and struggle by year after year as just below average teams … imagine to the gate plan in hand and working up to 65 - 75 minutes 0-0 and suddenly 2 or 3 players join the fray like say Morrel /Eisa/ Adel .. ???
I think we can all name players who played very young, some went on to make it some failed. We can also all name players who went out on loan before making it. Didn't Spurs loan an 18 year old to Leyton Orient (18 games) then Millwall (22 games) then Norwich (3 games as not rated) then Leicester (13 games) 56 games 14 goals for a striker not good. However he then matured, had gained experience etc. I think we would all take Harry Kane now, however as a 18-20 year old he was not good enough!!!!!!!! There are lots of other David Beckham Preston etc etc etc
I'm certainly not questioning your post because I agree, but I think you'll find that when Beckham was at Preston, they could tell he was already a class above and quickly warmed to him, especially after he scored directly from a corner! There's a nice short article here: https://www.fourfourtwo.com/feature...e-what-i-was-seeing-moyes-nearly-squashed-him
