Welcome Joe! Don't know a lot about him, or how much game time he's realistically going to get, but hopefully he'll end up being a useful addition to our promotion push! On the which of our current loanies could make it in the PL debate. I think must would be of the opinion that THB and Downes are ready to make the step up and would be good players for a newly promoted side with the potential to push on. Fraser I also think would be an excellent option from the bench for a newly promoted side. He's clearly desperate to stay, and if he can take being a super sub in the Championship, I feel like he would accept that role in the PL too if it came to it. Continue as he has done, fire us to promotion and he's earned a 2 year deal in my books.
Because he is going or because he is coming to us? Because remember they have a pathetic chip on their shoulders when it comes to us despite our assistance in saving them from extinction
The more detailed synopsis of spying on their message boards would be: He is a talented footballer who is not particularly great at tackling back. Their current system doesn't suit him, but he was excellent under previous managers. He is, apparently, very good going forward. There was some annoyance that our midfield is already very good and theirs is now a little light in backups. The comment I saw repeated was they should not be helping us get promoted. Therefore, they feel he makes us stronger - while their fans acknowledge we are already one of the strongest teams in the Championship. They seem to feel like they need us to stay down so they can become the central destination for talent on the south coast - which they ALSO acknowledge we still are despite our relegation. It was an interesting read!
So it’s a bit of both then! How many players have we really directly competed for? And very recently it seemed like they were going to beat us in a direct competition for a player (Jackson). Perhaps they realise they only got Aarons instead of us because we were a division lower? And most likely a long game thing we academies? They might think if we languish long term young players from the south whose parents don’t fancy moving a long way and aren’t hoovered up by Chelsea will pick them over us. I don’t think that is true though
It is the Academy thing, primarily. They were hoping we would sink into decline and become a less enticing academy space.
It will still take some way before their academy rivals ours surely? Or have they made lots of improvements there in recent years?
They only just got raised up to Academy Level 2 - so a ways off of us. I think even if we sank, the London clubs and Brighton would still be stealing their players. However, kids from the South West could be a target.
Seems like there are plenty of youngsters to go round these days anyway. Just saw that in Brighton's latest PL2 game, they also had a 15 year old playing, and he scored twice! (The boy's name is Harry Howell btw. And he's English)
Is there a better werewolf name than Harry Howell? P.S. Brighton are also a level one academy, like us, so can pull in the best talent from across the country. I think level twos, like Bournemouth, are more limited in scope.
It’s very on the nose. Rather than just on the nose for people who know Latin like a certain famous werewolf from the most popular children’s book series of all time
Away from the academy side us staying below them for a few seasons would definitely be beneficial to them given the amount of support we've traditionally drawn from that area.
