Foxy-Lady

Same thing happened to the son of a friend of mine who had a lot of interest from Everton, Man Utd and "others" a few years back when he was 14-15.....but they were all put off by the compensation fees as leicester refused to release him once they saw the possibility of financial compensation. No criticism of the club on that point as the clubs do invest heavily and the system was well designed to protect smaller cubs having their players "poached" by bigger clubs after they have spent years developing them. The issue for me that i witnessed was that like many others at that time, the development of the player stalled from 16-19 at LCFC (Peake and Beaglehole!) so by the time they released him at 19, the interest from other clubs had receded primarily due to his lack of development and opportunity... and his opportunities elsewhere were no longer what they once were as a very promising 14-15 year old. Thankfully, he is still playing professionally as he did find another club but LCFC lost out on any compensation fee.....but still incurred all his wage and training costs for those "lost" 4 years. What some folk dont really appreciate is that its sometimes harder for a player to get out of an academy than it is for them to get into one....!

Totally agree with you.....which is maybe why his dad was making the point he was as maybe even he was beginning to see some changes in his own son...?!?

even his dad was having a go at him recently for being "...more interested in watches and cars than his football.....!" Head seems to have been turned big time. Success = Talent + hard work

Its an issue and a question that many have been raising long, long before we ever moved to Seagrave......and its even more relevant now after investing so heavy in world class facilities. Took years for Beagle-Ball to be "eased aside"....but the rest of his championship level coaching clique still remain. As for Petty, seemed a decent coach initially but appears his main contribution to date (other than carrying Beagleholes bags ...!) was to poach a few of his ex-Villa lads (Johannsen, Clarke, Brunt etc...). Not sure what the longer term benefits of any of that will be for us unless Brunt turns out to be a star...?

Very good point! Ive been watching Barnes since his Youth football days and i've always felt he is better suited to playing in a more central position....which is where he used to play!.

And who do you think the Loan manager ultimately reports to...?!? Nothing ever happens at LCFC Academy without Rudkin's say so...

And there speaks the voice of experience...!

Isnt that significantly LESS than the fee we paid Blackburn when we originally signed him 3/4 years ago? If so, hoe come weve managed to actually LOSE money on a player who now has first team experience playing in the lower leagues....and that excludes the nearly £1m wages we've paid him these past 4 years? Slightly baffling for me...

There's a good reason why they gave him a 7 year contract.....they know exactly what he's like and they know that one day, he will do same to them as he's done to every other club he's signed for. By offering 7 years, they've just increased the sale value for when he does the inevitable to them like he's done to everyone else. Fair play to Chelsea as what they're actually saying by offering him a 7 year deal is...."how can we say WE dont trust you Fofana without actually saying WE dont trust YOU...?!?"

Surely if he fails to turn up for work without fit and proper reason he forfeits his wages and loyalty bonus...?!?

I cant recall what the fee was or whether it was even disclosed.....I just incorrectly assumed it would have been maybe £2m max? Do you know what the actual fee was as i would be interested to know?

True.....But we sold him for a few £million to a championship side who knew he was capable of playing at that level.....thereby getting some return on our investment. Ironically, Knight has now spent 2 successive seasons in the championship with different teams (Wycombe & Peterborough)....and both of them got relegated. The curse of Josh Knight...?!?

Ive watched George Hirst play so many times and never understood what all the hype was about. not sure he would've achieved all he has if it wasn't for his dads connection....but that's just my personal opinion. But one thing i am absolutely certain about is that he will never be a PL level player or be one of our starting players....unless we end up playing in the chapionship! Seems to me this is more about finance and maths than his ability. Options seem to be... a/. continue to pay him £10k/week to see out the final year of his contract and then he leaves on a free resulting in -£0.5m loss over the next year (+ losses from previous years wages) or b/. we accept his demands of £25k/week on a 3 year deal, loan him out to championship club (who pay 50% of his wages!) and hope he does well enough for them to buy him for +£1.5m next year, thereby resulting in a marginal nett profit Problem with option B/. is that if he doesn't do well enough at championship level, we could be left with a player on our books for 3 years costing us £1.2m in salary costs with minimal resale value.....a scenario that is starting to become a bit of a problem for us right now.

The bigger the challenge, the more we will learn about him. We wont learn much about him if he's given an armchair ride in a side that wins easily every week. When Josh Knight went to Wycombe on loan, they were struggling at the foot of the championship meaning he was in a defensive battle EVERY game Brought the very best out of him and demonstrated that he was capable of standing out in a weak team at championship level. Also demonstrated his mental resilience that he never gave anything less than 100% every game even though he was nearly always on the losing side.....eventually earning him the supporters and players POY awards. " we learn more about peoples characters in times of adversity than we do at any other times...!

Disappointing from Fofana in view of new contract and "loyalty bonuses".....and timing is NOT great either as Chelsea will probably string this out until end of window to ensure we cant strengthen our squad at same time. We should absolutely NOT allow this to happen unless it is on our terms by giving them a firm deadline by which they MUST meet our acceptable price and if not, the deal will NOT be sanctioned beyond this point until the next transfer window. I am hoping that those in charge of our recruitment will have been expecting this development in view of all the speculation and will have been planning ahead for this eventuality for the past few weeks....so we should already have been having "conversations" with others...??

Been saying this for years on another thread...! Barnes and Chilwells agents/parents were desperate for them NOT to be playing for Beaglehole in the U23s and pushed very hard for loan moves to get away from their development being stifled in that set-up KDH had several loan opportunities 12-18 months before he was finally allowed to go on loan just so Beaglehole could keep him in his U23s and make results look better. If they are good enough, let them go out and play senior football as soon as they are capable and ready and dont stifle their development in a meaningless U23s league just to massage the egos of the coaches.. Didnt take long for Beaglehole to be "moved aside" after Rodgers joined after he had been in same job for years without any questions......amazing what a fresh pair of eyes bring to the scene.

lets hope he is a Ukrainian then...!

But im not pointing my finger at anyone.....Im just highlighting how we previously managed to sign those world class players without paying top dollar for them so we don't need to try and compete with Real Madrid for players if we can carry on doing what we've previously managed to successfully do. And do i think its easy to maintain a 70% successful signing rate? Personally, i think 70% successful signing rate would be a great achievement in the PL but i guess it all depends on what is defined as a successful signing and whether you quantify successful signing by performance level, longevity or resale profit? (eg McGuire = Yes ; Bertrand = No ; Soumare = ? : Daka = remains to be seen? : Syuncu = depends on what resale value we achieve?)

same way as we managed to get those world class players to sign for us in the first place would be an obvious answer wouldn't it...?!? I know its not always easy to find diamonds, but if our process is proven to work, why not keep trying to repeat it...?

Absolutely spot-on...! Easy to apportion blame people with the benefit of hindsight but paying over-inflated wages to players that other clubs simply refuse to pay does appear to be one of the major stumbling blocks for us. Did we show naivety/panic by offering them too much money as an enticement to sign for us, did we simply misjudge the market OR, have those players simply failed to deliver? Difficult to say....but in a buyers market, other clubs are not going to pay top dollar and the same over-inflated wages for players who other clubs are looking to offload....and the players are definitely not going to want to take a drop in wages. It does appear the DoF may have made a rod for his own back on this one...!

No, not saying that at all.....no need for you to put words in my mouth. Im just stating the obvious that there is a "potential" conflict of interest that might exist and that is always a concern for any business. Im not sure how many other players we have signed from Rodgers sons agency since Rodgers has been manager, but if Bertrand is the only one, its not exactly a very impressive argument to counter any "potential" conflict of interest argument.

If True (if?), that is none of the most concerning things of all about this transfer for me....the fact that such a scenario exists and is possibly open to repeat...?!?

Norman Leet Vs Norwich at Filbert Street.....casually lobbed the keeper from 35 yards out!

Norman Leet's 35 yard own goal Vs Norwich still keeps me awake at night.....defining moment of the illustrious career of the Vikings Tun legend.

Ironically, that is precisely the point i was trying to make. Seems lower league clubs with more limited resources (ie Sunderland, Carlisle, Bolton, wimbledon, Ipswich etc...) are more likely to develop a GK as their financial survival is dependent upon developing players either for their first X1..... or to sell to generate revenue. As such, they need to be more reliant on the quality of their coaches as they are not in a position to be able to simply buy (poach!) the finished article at 18 years old that the wealthier clubs are able to. There is NO geographical, economic or social factors that would make Leics less likely to produce a goalkeeper than Cumbria, Lancashire, wearside or Suffolk......it is more likely the quality of coaches and the need to produce players simply for the club to survive financially. If you need to develop players to survive, then it follows that you also need top quality coaches to be able to do that...! If i were in charge of recruiting for an academy GK coach, i think i would be impressed by the CV of a GK coach who could actually provide evidence of professional keepers they had developed.....as opposed to those from LCFC who with all their available resources, have failed to produce a single pro GK through their system in the last 8-10 years? (PS is it just coincidence that Chris Kirkland is the only Top Pro GK from Leics in the last 15 years....and he was never at LCFC academy?)