Yup. And that's also what Brentford did as they were going through L1 and the Championship. There's nothing wrong with buying players to sell them on. As long as the club keeps investing in players who fit the 'template'.
Exactly, and there were times where we had 3/4 at the same time it felt you could rely on to sell for a nice fee in the next window
I’m sure that’s correct. WBA fans appeared very unhappy with their day out. I thought it was a good game with a lot to be happy about
I think they were unhappy with him when he went down 'injured' in front of them towards the end of the game
Yes something happened at a corner (I think) and currie went down for a bit not sure if it was a whack in the balls? They then gave him grief, hence the reaction
Correct, so if you do sell him, the transfer value increases 2 or 3 fold. I don't think its an obsession its accepting the current reality. You need 6 plus players of his quality to be a Championship contending side. The model should be to develop several players, you could argue that is what we are trying to do, but simply have recruited players who have not improved. I equally accept the argument that its hard to develop many players in a constant low block formation.
All this obviously needs to be along side developing our own talent. That is another area that is presumably being developed but it starts by being proactive in kids under 7s football and trying to compete with the Premiership clubs that blanket cover this area ahead of us. Literally any child with potential will have been offered a trial with one of the London clubs before we appear to have cast on eye on them.
This was my assumption.
I am pretty sure that all EFL clubs must now have an Academy of some sort. Brentford have been forced to reopen theirs, I think. Assuming we are an established Championship club in the next five or so years (which is very likely imo), then we'll have a really big catchment area. The PL clubs do try and hoover up all the talent.from.the age of eight onwards, but any parent who does more than five minutes research will know the child has a far better chance of turning pro with a smaller (ie not top ten PL) club. PL.clubs are far more ruthless in booting boys out of the Academy and they also have a habit of bringing in very highly rated boys from other countries- although that may have slowed since Brexit tbf. I have direct experience of this, as a close family member (15 years ago)was a very highly rated Academy player aged 14-15, with lots of interest from.PL clubs. He was with a L2 club at the time and that (a far better chance of going pro) was precisely their pitch to him. But they also insisted he leave school at 16, so he turned them down anyway and went to University. OUFC tended to lose the best local players (way before Martin Keown) because a) the training facilities were terrible and b) the club was a bit of a mess. But neither will apply going forward, and I would be reasonably optimistic that we will be able to capture the great majority of local talent. Fingers crossed etc.
Don't disagree. The record in the last 15+ years has been pretty hopeless. But better training facilities, and a good standard first team, should help...
Oh no why? Is he badly injured?
Think MB mentioned a couple of weeks ago that he had something in his ankle that needed 'tidying up' over the summer.
I think they’ll wait until the summer. He is putting himself forward for selection apparently, but his ankle is still causing pain so the club don’t want to risk him either getting injured or having to replace him in-game.
