Southampton’s victory over Leeds in the Championship play-offs had a significant impact on the future of a Manchester City player. Manchester City defender Taylor Harwood-Bellis, who spent the season on loan at St. James Park, is set to make a permanent move to Southampton.
His loan agreement required the Saints to buy him from Manchester City for £20 million if they won promotion from the Championship to the Premier League. I’m sure you’re wondering where this story is going. Well, let me tell you. Manchester City went ahead and sold an academy defender to Southampton for a cool £20 million. And let’s be honest, you probably hadn’t even heard of the player before. That said, that fee is pure profit since he came from their youth academy, which gives a nice boost to their summer transfer kitty.
I wonder if that’s simply the price of dominating the English football scene, or if it’s just exceptional loan management?
Well, that’s something for the Arsenal decision-makers to think about. It’s quite ironic that Arsenal had a highly rated academy player, Reuell Walters, sitting on the bench for the past 1 or even 2 seasons. Instead of giving him a chance to make his debut or loaning him out, they ended up letting him leave for free simply because they couldn’t convince him that there was a future for him at Arsenal.
As highly rated as he is, it looks like Reuell Walters might just explode out there, similar to how our academy prodigy Omari Hutchinson, who left for Chelsea, dazzled with Ipswich in the Championship last season, and they are considering another loan for him with a 25million sale condition at the end.
People are hailing Ethan Nwaneri as the next big talent from the Arsenal academy. If he doesn’t have a significant role to play next season, it would be fair to give him and other academy stars who are ready for the first team a chance to go out on loan so they can prove themselves at a higher level. If they shine but still not good enough for Arsenal, at least they are in the shop window?
Jack A
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Do we have any talented starlets to sell
Surely any talented academy players should be coming into the squad .
They are about as rare as a moon landing at this moment in time .
We shall see what the future holds for Nwaneri, hopefully a place and opportunities in the first team.
Unfortunately, Arteta promoting ANY youth is about as rare as a moon landing. In 5 years, no one has been promoted to my recollection to a first team place.
Patino could have spent this year with us in place of Elneny before making a decision, but no. Walters could have been with us instead of Cedric, but no. I believe Waters sat on the bench like 20 times but never played.
Souza is another that did not get an opportunity. Not all will make it, but so very few have even had the opportunity under Arteta.
We used to make stars not buy them, but we have changed direction and buy talent because maybe it is too much to develop them with our staff.
Personally I don’t want to hear anyone complain about City, Utd, or Chelsea spending to buy teams and titles, because we are right up there with them, nearly 1 billion, most certainly after this Summer.
There are some exciting talents around age 16/17 . The ones I’m most excited about are Nwaneri,Myles and Chido Martin has been scoring for fun. Think Arteta is partly responsible for not giving youth a chance. Part of the problem again is that we’ve not really had quality players coming through after Saka. It’s no surprise that none of them have really shone even after leaving Arsenal.
Hmm comment seems to have disappeared.
Well here we go for a 2nd attempt.
We have become a buying club and there is nothing wrong with that provided it is sustainable and we are successful.
Success imo is trophies PL or ECL and not a top 4 finish.
Top 4 is not a trophy.
The club owners clearly backed Arteta as a buying manager and so far it is going well.
Chido Obi Martin is the REAL one to watch in the academy.
If we are talking about about academy players, what happened to Nelson, Smith Raw and Eddy N ?They are all academy graduates that should have been in our first team like Saka playing every week.With what I have seen with Nwaneri he is going to be next player from academy to make it.
Chido Obi Martin is like a man playing against boys. Lets see what happens when he plays with lads his own size.
I like this Chido Obi Martin chap. I just watched some clips of him and he has something Henry-esque about the way he scores with his right foot from the left side. He’s also tall and seems good in the air.
I’m loving Chido Obi too as his record for u18 is mind blogging but shouldn’t be put too much hype on him yet. Let’s see how he’s going for u21 next. In my opinion the closest academy prospect to join the senior would be Mika Biereth. This boy is really underrated. He’s robust, fearless, got a good skill set and a great team player. His mentality fortitude and confidence will make things easier for him to settle with the team and will be a nuisance for the opponents. Follow by Amario Cozier-Duberry, Ethan Nwanari, Myles Lewis-Skelly, and of course Chido Obi Martin.