Scanning through some of to Fridays sports papers, it appears that at least 4 premiership clubs are sniffing around our Patrick Roberts. ManU, Liverpool, Everton and Arsenal amongst those mentioned,I hope the management gives them short swift, not for sale. Unless WC Fields offers squillions like he did Smalling, Having watched both in the past,Smalling was not in the same class. Another 2 years and we could have a future Mullary / Edwards on our books.
Unfortunately, it's always in the cards that our best players will leave, but if we can get some productivity (and money) out of Roberts before he's off, that's good for us. Earlier in the week the rags suggested we were in for an African player in Holland named Bony (skinny chap), but apparently the "bigger" teams have now been linked with him. This "bigger" team business is the one aspect of being a Fulham fan I find irksome.
While the main purpose of the Academy is to develop âhome grownâ players for the first team squad (hopefully), the Club will inevitably have sell to keep it viable. This summer sees a bit of a bulge at the U21 squad level, with most of the lads in the 19-20 age bracket and about half of the current U18 group set to join them. So some will have to go. Pat Roberts isnât in that category of course, only having turned 16 last month. Rubbing shoulders with other youngsters in the England U16s will have given him an insight into what the ManUs of this world offer. However heâs a level headed lad and being local (he was playing for Surrey schools less than 2 years ago) I donât think his head will be turned that easily. A £1m is a lot of dosh but his is the talent we must hold onto.
I think we should adopt the Daniel Levy style of negotiating when it comes to dealing with the big clubs coming in for our players. The Dempsey and Dembele transfers were a bit of a joke to be honest. If one of the top clubs want one of our players, we should not be bent over a table and play hard ball for once.
Just for the record, Pat scored one and had one assist in England U16s 3-1 over Chile yesterday in the Montaigu Tournament.
While I don't disagree with you, with the Dembele move we couldn't do anything. The release clause was met and it couldn't be turned down. With Dempsey, we didn't get as much as we should've done but we did reject a few lowball offers from Liverpool. I would like us to adopt the "sell players for twice what they're worth" tactic though!
We've actually benefited from this whole "big club - little club" thing. Top prospects like Smalling and Dembele ascend the latter to join big clubs and big-club players like Sidwell, Duff and (of course) Berbs eventually fall out of favour with their teams and drop down to smaller clubs at bargain basement prices. Twenty years from now I suspect some of us will be up in the stands saying things like "I remember when Berbatov was on the team ... What a talent. You should have seen this guy!"
The thing about the Academy though is that we ARE one of the 'big clubs'. Being in the elite Category 1 camp we're in a position to attract young talent not sell it. Certainly not talent that is only 16 and therefore not able to sign professional forms for another year.
I see us as being in a similar situation to that experienced by Southampton and West Ham in recent history. Both have attracted/produced terrific young players, however their talent was/is eventually snapped up by the "big" teams. The important thing, however, is for us to make sure we get good fees for those youngsters that do leave. I'm thinking of the £10m West Ham got for Lampard, or the various big fees Southampton received for Walcott, Bale & Oxlade-Chamberlain, or the money we received for Smalling. As C58 said, Fulham is now a big club in youth terms. We should not be selling any young players on the cheap.
