I like him, but not as much as i like Rickie. If United really gave us 30M for Luke, I'm ok with it. It's a sound piece of buisness. He might become best left back in the world, but he isn't on that level yet, and we can replace him with a player who would cost us much less than Shaw costed United. The most disturbing thing here for me is losing a player from our Academy. I like the idea of a team composed of home-grown talent and I'm sad that the best of the bunch is leaving so soon.
A team composed of home-grown talent, or at least with a high percentage of it, is the dream, but they need to be given a damn good reason to stick with it. United's "class of '92" would have ended up scattered around the Premier League if they hadn't had the realistic ambition of going for the title.
Thing is, we need to be playing at a higher level in order to retain our A+ academy players. Until we get there, sales will happen. It's just the way of the game.
For the sake of argument, if we had a team with the likes of Shaw, Bale, Walcott and Oxlade-Chamberlain in it, wouldn't we find it much easier to get to the hallowed higher level at which we might be able to keep them? Shouldn't we expect these kids to give us the benefit of a few years to stick together and see just how far they can go? Because, although I don't particularly begrudge him for leaving, I don't think Shaw has really given us a chance.
Can't really say if in football. We could go on and say if we had a owner like Chelsea we would keep our players. I would rather sell one or two if it ment strengthening our squad as a whole. Nothing to worry about at all.
The ONLY thing that's really going to piss me off about this, is if he becomes really good and that gets associated purely with the wonderful Manchester bloody United. Much like Bale "learnt his trade" at Tottenham.....
Players come and go, so I don't mind if a few academy players are sold on. We have plenty that will be fighting to get in and around the squad.
It will happen, so get pissed now so you are chilled later. I don't really care, long as I know he started of at us that is good enough for me.
I'll be too busy caring about the previous and next Southampton FC game. Why be concerned about things you have no control over, especially spun by illinformed, biased and often, idiotic media?
Do we actually know how seriously we tried to keep Luke. Were we presented with Luke wanting to leave and we made the best of it? Or were we approached and put it to Luke to see what he thought? It may have been something we thought we could live with...bearing in mind how short of players we were last season. It may have been considered that we could use the money for the team. It just seems to have been handled differently to the Lallana situation.
As I've demonstrated though, it's not selling one or two, it's selling all of them. The only one we've kept for any length of time has been Lallana, and by his own admission it's only because he didn't have the "x factor" at an early age that the others had. People said after Bale we wouldn't sell any more young stars, and then the same thing after we sold Oxlade-Chamberlain, now you're basically saying the same now - it'll just be "one or two". The fact is it's not going to be one or two is it? Every player who has something about themselves will be sold, in spite of the promises made by boards past and present, and it will be to detriment of our ability to compete at the highest level.
I will say again every team sells and every team will continue to sell. It's not like it will ever change, just enjoy the players while they are here.
You cant turn that sort of bid down. What if he picked up a serious injury or doesnt develop as we all hope and expect he will. Some players go off the rails. £27m is just too good to say no.
30 million for an 18yr old is a pretty good deal and to quote a well known saying in Uruguay, "I'd bite your ****in' hand off for that".
