Armstrong. I read somewhere not long ago that his four year contract expires in June 2022. But I don't know if that is true, or if he has since signed a new one with Blackburn.
Didnt Che just have one decent year though? Armstrong has been banging them in for a while now. I watched him a fair few times for Cov and he looked very good then.
That was in league one for Coventry though. I don't think his Championship numbers since then are particularly special, until this season.
He’s older than Bale and Shaw were when they made their first-team debuts. Probably past it by now...
Can you offer trialist contracts for owners? Get them to stand on the pitch awkwardly holding a scarf, wear dark sunglasses in the box while wearing an inscrutable expression, that sort of thing?
Something I think we really miss is a bit of guile. Not since the days of Lallana and then Tadic have we had someone that unlocks a defence with a forward pass. Ings would thrive off that kind of player. He'd probably be too expensive but Shaqiri is available from Liverpool. Pereira at West Brom has been very good of late and would be worth enquiring about
He was also just 18 and managed 20 goals in a single league 1 season which is bloody impressive. Prior to this season, Toney has played in league 1 and only managed 20+ goals once, and he was much older than Armstrong too. Yet a lot of people seem to think he is worth £30m-£40m despite only scoring a few more than Armstrong this season in a far superior team. I think Armstrong would be very good business.
The question with Armstrong: can he finish at anything approaching a viable rate in the Premier League? That may seem like a strange question with a player who has scored 28 goals, but his finishing isn't very good...he has scored 23 non-penalty goals on 181 shots, for a 12.7% conversion rate. Shane Long's time with Saints? 11.3%. Che Adams with Saints? 12.8%. It's great that Armstrong seems to be able to generate an otherworldly number of shots (4.7/game; Teemo Pukki is the runner-up at 3.3/game!), but can he do that in the Premier League, on Saints? Unlikely. And if he cannot, then you have a player who already has a habit of scuffing chances at a lower level.
I think it is an interesting reflection on our academy set up that we are now looking at the youth players from clubs in lower divisions. Improving the academy has got to be a priority for Saints. If the transfer market is so difficult, we should be concentrating on producing our own talent.
And Schneiderlin, Valery, Jankewitz. Even Lallana although he was only 12 so he genuinely did come through our academy.
A priority, perhaps. It can't be 'the' priority though. We don't have time to develop our own talent - if we don't buy in for next season, we'll really struggle next.
Crocker said at the fans' forum that we are working to improve the academy and that it's not been good enough recently. But the problem is, we won't see the results for several years yet.
We signed a few players from other academies relatively recently. Ramello Mitchell springs to mind as one who was supposedly very sought after, anyone know how he is doing?