Gary suggested on MFW last week that there would be no significant incomings for Norwich City during this month’s transfer window, during which period Watford have already introduced three new arrivals and Burnley have £25million burning a hole in the back pocket of Sean Dyche from the ludicrous price they achieved for the sale of striker Chris Wood to… Newcastle.
Free from the clutches of the much-derided Mike Ashley and in the dubious hands of their new owners, the Geordies can afford to spend what they like and where they like. Go on Eddie, bid for Todd Cantwell. You know you want to.
As a counterbalance to the rich kids, MFW regular Alex Bain created a list of the Stuart Webber-created signings for the Under 23s and where they are now. I’ve chipped in with the value judgements but must credit Alex for the research as, frankly, I couldn’t have been ar$ed to do it myself.
So seat belts on dear readers as this might not make pretty reading, and please consider that we are not considering first-team recruits or any of our homegrown players here.
Archie Mair is a goalkeeper who has been recalled from Lincoln City by a mutual decision due to lack of game time. His future is unknown although he will be available for a loan in the future if anybody comes in for him.
Akin Famewo is a central defender at Charlton and doing pretty well there. He is popular with Addicks supporters. Supposedly there is a buy-back clause in the contract.
Bali Mumba is primarily a full-back but we’ve all seen him play wing-back against Swansea, so we know he can operate up and down either flank. Very surprisingly loaned to Peterborough until the end of the season (and scored a cracking goal on debut – Ed).
Sam McCallum is a left-back who has been out on loan ever since he was bought for some £3million around three years ago. Following two spells at former club Coventry, he’s at QPR now but sadly injured and not for the first time in his fledgling career.
Danel Sinani has been on loan before but is currently at Huddersfield but he too is unfortunately injured. His contract runs out in June and the Terriers have a buyout clause in their favour. The Luxembourg international will not be returning to Carrow Road.
Reece McAlear is a midfielder who is well thought of at Inverness CT and on loan until the end of the season. I know nothing of Scottish football outside the SPL so cannot judge how he is progressing.
Aston Oxborough the goalkeeper is on loan to Barnet until the end of the season and therefore is in the bowels of the National League. However, he is returning from a bad injury so this move might prove beneficial for him.
Daniel Adshead is a midfielder sourced from Rochdale who is on loan to the relegation-threatened Kent side Gillingham but at least in terms of his development Steve Evans is no longer the manager there.
Gassan Ahadme is a Moroccan striker loaned to Portsmouth and returned to sender who has sealed a permanent deal with Nigel Clough’s Burton Albion.
Sebastian Soto is a Chilean-American guy who has been sent on loan to Porto II. There is a *buy* clause in this deal as well but I at least have never seen Soto in a Norwich shirt so have no idea what he might have become here.
Matt Dennis is an attacking midfielder who was signed from Arsenal a while back and is currently at National League outfit Southend United until the end of the season.
Rocky Bushiri is a centre-back who has very recently been loaned to Hibernian. The Hi-Bees shoved him in at the deep end to suffer a 2-0 reverse against Celtic at Parkhead. The Belgian youth international is another one unlikely to return to NR1.
Now while I would be the first to agree that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with developing young footballers and paying them a decent wage during the process it looks to my gimlet eye as if Webber has not come up with the goods. Every single player in the list above will have a sales value of zilch.
Jamal Lewis? Pre Webber and from the academy; likewise the Murphy twins.
Ben Godfrey? Not your find, Stuart.
James Maddison whose sale was crucial to the future of the club? Not recruited on your watch Mr Webber.
Take away the gamble on Emi Buendia and Stuart Webber’s credibility doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny, does it?
As always the thoughts of our dear readers are most welcome. Maybe Alex and I have missed one or two from the list?
Since we’re on the theme of failed gambling and I’ve always wanted to put this at the end of an MFW article it’s time for a bit of:
There is another failure, you might argue he didn,t get a break, Melvin Sitti, a friend of mine saw him play a few time at U23 said he looked above those around in technique. Left Norfolk recently I believe
What papers over the cracks and deflects the eye s away are the Murphy,s (11mill each)- Madison,(22mill) Godfrey (25mill) , and Lewis (15mill). Prices found on various web pages, A tidy sum they add up to, and as said not one originated with Webber,
Think it is only EMI he has had success with, with all the younger players who we may consider a bit of a failure, we have the Husband’s & Franke’s. While on the incomings our foray into the Greek market, is hardly pulling up trees.
He seems to be forming a habit of securing deals with players who either have injuries or a bad history of injuries or Norman. Jarvis and Byram (who I hope can get a darn good injury free time now)
Sorry may have wandered away from main thrust of the topic
Morning Lad
Sitti is a good call and one we should have probably mentioned.
Injury-prone players tend to be cheap for just that reason and Sam Byram is a fine example of that but without tempting fate it would seem he’s getting back on his feet literally if you like.
No wandering from where I’m sitting 🙂
Cheers
Martin, you should have a look at how many youngsters Chelsea have out on loan, and then see how many of them end up in lower leagues, or moving on for no fee, I guess it’s something most Premier League clubs do (with the exception of Brentford), and when they’re out on loan, the majority, if not all, of their wages are paid by their temporary home. If you don’t go prospecting, you don’t find any diamonds.
Hi Jim
Fair point about prospecting for diamonds but it’s a shame we haven’t found one for a while and Alex and I didn’t mention the likes of Clarke. Gibbs and Kenny Coker because they haven’t been out on loan yet..
I agree to an extent about Chelsea and us securing the loan of Billy Gilmour from them goes along way towards proving your point. I’m sure Thomas Tuchel will be as disappointed as we are that it hasn’t quite worked out for either party – yet.
Cheers
Hi Jim
Chelsea and a few other clubs can afford to waste money on possible potential future stars where as city can’t under this model of ownership.
EUFA and FIFA are trying to address the hoarding of potential star players in restricting the loan market and over the next 4 years any one club will only be allowed so many players going out this number will gradually be reduced to 6 domestic and 6 internationally.
At present Chelsea, ManC and others have feeder clubs they own and these rules will also effect how loans between these clubs are handled.
Clubs like City will always be behind the 8 ball until we get better financing slowly the infrastructure is being built up after years of neglect but can city attract potential star of the future without success on the pitch ie Premiership football I am not sure they can
Hi Alex
*Can City attract potential stars of the future without success on the pitch eg Premiership football? I am not sure they can.*
I think we can, actually.
It’s the oven-ready ones we have always failed to attract.
Cheers
Hi Martin
It will get harder IMHO as the bigger clubs will offer more incentives, but I think second chance players like Josh Martin, Barden will come in an effort to prove that the club’s that released them were wrong also like both Martin and Barden came from Arse-nal that will entice others released from them take a good hard look at city
So yeah we may not get them first time round but on the rebound
Maybe – Matt Dennis came from Arsenal too of course.
Could we afford to buy these players if we were no longer receiving any PL or parachute money?
Hi John
Under those circumstances they would be largely the ONLY type of player we could afford.
Cheers
Another I forgot is Tofflo at Huddersfield.
A few that have been released in the last 4 years have started to build a career possibly late developers and good luck to them.
City have give a platform for Skipp to go forward and now Williams but I think his future is away from ManU and Gilmour to much expected after a few club games and playing for Scotland only time will tell look at where Roberts is now.
Bloody hell, thats awful. A bad start to the day, especially given the Hodgson/Hornets news. (And, Martin, Bruce Foxton is with From The Jam, Rick the drummer joined them and left a few years later.) !
Morning Dan
Yes it does appear a bit bleak but as Jim said [above] you have speculate to accumulate – the article is there simply to highlight that the Webber speculation hasn’t really, erm, gone as well as we are led to believe.
Didn’t know Buckler had left From The Jam tbh. I probably will check them out at some juncture as the UEA isn’t far from me.
Cheers
A good article and as it points out – all of the players, other than Buendia joined NCFC before SW joined us.
OK, the 500% profit (bought for around £7M and sold for around £35M) was an incredible result!!
I’m still at pains trying to fathom how AN could sign JM and Naismith in the same window!
STOP PRESS
I’ve just seen on BBC Breakfast that Watford are in talks with Woy!! 😳
All I can say is good luck with that option and I’m just so relieved that SW didn’t opt for him or Big Sam!!
Morning Ed
Yeah it’ll be the shortest of short-term contracts and not just because of the Pozzos – you might have head that line before 🙂
The thing with Madders is that Coventry, ourselves and most importantly the player himself really benefitted from the loan-back and his time at Aberdeen did no-one any harm either, of course.
Cheers
If I recall correctly Maddison was spotted by Neil Adams when he was monitoring Jacob Murphy during his loan spell at Coventry, so it was possibly more of a NA signing than AN.
Good call Steve – I’m pretty sure you’ve got it right.
I would have a lot more faith in NA being able to spot decent footballers than SW.
Hi Sue
Their comparative playing record suggest that to me as well.
Cheers
Our success as a selling club is a bit of a myth (although no club gets it right 100% of the time). Some well-timed big sales over recent seasons combined with two surprise promotions have certainly steadied the financial boat. Imagine if we’d done neither and the Covid came along. We’d be in the deep do-do. (Not the bird.)
Hi Chris
I agree it’s a bit of a myth as people only remember the successful sales – we could go back to the days of so many like Townsend, Sherwood or Disco Dale if we wanted to but this was just a piece focussing on the here and now, deliberately excluding academy products.
Cheers
I think your research is missing more than a couple of players
Idah joined 4 months after Webber
Omobamidele only 2 years ago I think?
Then there is Dan Barden who filled in for a few games last season
You mentioned not including players signed for the first team so that excludes
Placheta
Sorensen
Dowell
Beyond them you have
Josh Martin
Rob Nizet – sold to Lecce without a senior app
Aidan Fitzpatrick – ?
Melvin Sitti
Then a whole host of free signings
Adam Phillips, Tom Scully, Savos Mourgos, Caleb Richards, etc
But overall the judgement on whether his policy is a success is a bit more complex than just looking at the hits vs misses.
The most obvious being profit and loss – bar Sam Mccallum who was about 3m, the highest fee paid is probably around 500k with the majority being uner 100k or free. Sell Idah or any other player for anything upwards of 10m and you have had a success
Secondly how many of the players he didn’t sign Lewis, Godfrey, Aarons etc would have made it through if he didn’t insist on the policy? How many would have been blocked by a dubious signing, potential wasted and ended up playing for Swindon or Kings Lynn?
Finally i think we are only now in the “mid-term” rather than the short term phase of the strategy, its only now that the benefits will start to be easier to see. For example how many more quality youth signings are we starting to make now that we have developed a reputation for developing youth players?
A good reply and excellent points and whether it’s the mid term stage or not as we all know potential is just that.
But picking up rejected youth players from other clubs can have it’s downside as well not knowing what bad habits they have got from that time.
As for blooding Aaron’s, Lewis and Godfrey in some ways it was forced on Farke/Webber as they had no cash.
Missed this earlier – these *terms* confuse me as once the timescale is proclaimed we never hear any more about them!
Hi Belgrade
Nizet and Aiden Fitzpatrick would have fitted our brief to be sure – good spot.
We deliberately avoided academy breakthroughs such as Josh Martin but you certainly pose a question concerning Omobamadele and Idah. Both were picked up very early on from Irish clubs – I’ve friends in Cork City and know Idah was very highly rated in his homeland and of course wears the #9 shirt for the RoI.
I’m not sure they fit the topic of this particular article though because technically they came into the Academy rather than the under 23s.
Anyway great comment and thanks for it.
I think the Irish links pre-date the arrival of Webber but part of his role is developing what talent he inherited and he seems to have had more success there. The club have stated that it costs in excess of £5m p.a. to run the academy so those costs have to be added. Even in the days of Robert Chase he was quick to point out that Dale Gordon cost £600k to develop
I’ve heard the £5million figure too which is roughly the cost of one Angus Gunn – so in that light te Academy is trmendous valur for money 🙂
Incidentally, a good guide to how successful and/or desired your players are is who you sell them to. For example, the Big 6 (Man Utd, Man City, Liverpool, Spurs, Chelsea, Arsenal) although not always successful have always had money and prestige. So, question, when was the last time we sold a player to a Big 6 club?
I’ll give you a clue – it was almost 30 years ago!
In fact we’ve only sold 9 players to Big 6 clubs in the past 50 years. Doesn’t sound many, does it? Here’s the list…
Jun 1992 – Robert Fleck to Chelsea – £2.1M
Jul 1990 – Andy Linighan to Arsenal – £1.2M
Jul 1990 – Andy Townsend to Chelsea – £1.2M
Jun 1989 – Mike Phelan to Man Utd – £750K
Jul 1988 – Wayne Biggins to Man City – £150K
Dec 1987 – Steve Bruce to Man Utd – £1.0M
Jul 1981 – Martin O’Neill to Man City – £290K
Mar 1980 – Kevin Reeves to Man City – £1.2M
Aug 1974 – John Sissons to Chelsea – £70K
In those days ManC under Swales were a yo yo club stealing managers from yours truly but also clubs were on a more even keel where finances were concerned
Most of the Big 6 only shop for established internationals, and then mostly with big clubs overseas. It’s what is concerning the FA, as it stunts the development of home players. Williams and Gilmour are cases in point, very few opportunities to play for their parent club, and will most likely end up playing for a club other than one of the Big 6.
In retrospect, I think we all made a mistake in objecting to the proposed breakaway Super League. It may have been much better for football generally to have let them go, and to have a healthy four tier league where money was less a driving force. I realise that the TV revenues would disappear in the main, but it would be a healthier situation for most clubs.
I wouldn’t miss the *Big Six* at all if it were a clean break. It was all the to-ing and fro-ing between two competitions that got on my threepennies.
Me too
Could you imagine a PL fixture list under those *considerations*?
Jeez
That’s a great education – thanks Chris as I didn’t realise how few such sales there have been over the years.
Mind you I wouldn’t have called Citeh top six back in 80-81 🙂
Chris, I recall a comment somewhere in the 80s that we’d sold more £1m+ players, big money then, than any other Club in England.
I remember that claim too, Dan. Suspect it was true for a period in the mid- to late-80s.
Someone’s beat me to the punch with Idah & Omibamidele.
Omibamidele is ahead of where Ben Godfrey was at the same age in all aspects; physically, experience and positionally. If he carries on the same trajectory he should be worth £25m+.
Idah looks to be coming good…. I think a lot of people forget that he’s only 20.
Let’s say Idah & Andy are worth a combined £35m…. Add that to the £35m for Emi and the combined £70m definitely covers the cost off the above and provides a healthy return..
The fees & wages paid for the majority of those gambles will have been peanuts. Mair, Bushiri, Nizet etc etc will have cost nothing and will have improved the general quality of the U23’s.
The only head scratcher is Sitti, paid a good fee if I recall and saw nothing back.
Hi Steve
Adam ‘n’ Andy were not included as I’ve always thought of them as recruitments to the Academy but nonetheless I don’t think there’s anything wrong with your reasoning.
I think we gave Aberdeen about £500k for Mair and I can imagine an add-on list longer than the Bayeux tapestry. Can’t remember what we gave for Sitti tbh but it was probably over £1million so as you say, a good fee for a prospect.
Cheers
Martin
On the Irish frond we released the Irish- French lad after a poor loan at Harrogate with another youth that stayed their.
The Irish lad was offered a contract at Barnsley this summer so good luck to him but looking at our U23 squad and below we seem to have lost the ability to find gems on the emerald Isle of late yet send our youth recruitment manager to South America.
Nice jolly if you can get one
Quite a well-publicised scouting trip, was that one 🙂
Hi Steve
Melvin Sitti after leaving city tried various UK, Belgium and French clubs and only found one in the with championnat National side Annecy not sure what level this is at but good luck to him.
Ligue II I think.
Adam Idah came in 2017 and would have been scouted before Alex Neil left? Also Todd Cantwell was in the house well before Stuart Webber / Daniel Farke. Likewise Max Aarons who is probably next to go if/when we are relegated. We have to hope Bali Mumba is still ours if so in view of the risk in Byram.
Hi Roger
To the best of my knowledge Bali Mumba has a couple of years left on his contract so remains very much *ours*.
As you say Byram is a risk which is why I’m amazed he was allowed out on loan.
Cheers
Marty, when you think about it, there‘s not many professional footballers in the UK. On a micro level the ratio of working population in Norwich compared to the number of City players set me a thinking. Which doesn‘t make too many opportunities for hopeful young players, plus it takes a level of dedication and life style commitment beyond many young men, even if they have the skills. Cigarettes whiskey and wild wild women take their toll. But it only takes one or two successes to make an overall profit, and helping youngsters is no bad thing, providing it‘s done well. So questioning how well is fair point and I‘m with you on that one ole partner, I‘ll give ´em a 6 out of 10 could do better, sounds like my old school reports.
Hi Cutty
That’s an interesting perspective.
Certainly when it comes to established players we appeal much more to young family types such as Emi, Teemu and Josh Sargent than we do to the likes of others.
Prince of Wales & Riverside don’t really cut it for the average youngster.
I think most of us would agree with you that helping young footballers along is a very good thing to do and we’re pretty able in that respect – but we’re not attractive to anybody older with a flashy disposition and maybe in many ways that’s a good thing too.
Cheers
Great tune very dull list Martin .
The list Chris s written totally the opposite mostly in the chase era see we were far far better then than now . What did we do 🥺🥺🥺
Hi Jim
Most of those that came into the first team were from Arthur Souths days and Chase reaped the benefits from what South built with Bond and later and Brown.
Lewis we had to pay Luton compensation for
Famewo saw again from Luton and compensation
Godfrey from York £1+m fee
Aarons had left Luton and had trials at both Spurs and Chelsea before city took him on
All signed pre SW/DF days so really history repeating itself in some ways
Not sure we paid anything near £1million for Godfrey but the add-ons probably pushed it up to around that mark.
Godfrey bought 2016 and According to the York Press the figure is at least £150,000 with further clauses which could take the final amount up to £1m.
York pocketed close to £2-5 mill in Godfrey sell on to Neverton
Hi Jim
I’m no Motorhead freak but there’s something about that track…………
Alex and I only covered the recent to present but as I said above the likes of Sherwood, Townsend and Disco Dale certainly brought in a few bob for the Fat Controller.
In those days Dale Gordon was one of only a few homegrowns we sold – Sherwood came to us from Watford as a squad player for them and it was the same with Townsend at Southampton.
That was then and this is now of course.
Cheers
If we’re going back to Disco and the others, don’t forget Chris Sutton – local, and a UK record sale at the time, if I remember rightly. (Much to a certain Alan Shearer’s displeasure, I believe, since he was the previous record transfer.)
Oh, and Justin Fashanu, too, of course.
Most definitely. Darren Eadie as well.
Forgot to add [below] that a guy near me in the Barclay had a *SUTTON 5* replica shirt which if you looked closely said *SUTTON £5m*.
I’m sure he got himself on local TV over that ironic effort.
Foxy was one of ours and that’s a good call on Chris Sutton. It’s amazing that he was initially deployed at centre back until Walker played him up front as we had nobody else at the time – Rob Newman was filling in as target man at the time so the Silver Fox had to do something – and oh boy how well did that move pay off!
I had it off at the bookies one lovely day as I had ” heard ” that Chris would be playing up front in the Norwich V Carlisle in a league cup tie in 1992 Martin, not at centre back.
You were only allowed to bet on the score or first goal scorer in those days and I had a few ££ on Chris Sutton at around 12-1 if memory serves.
Really it is a pity that we didn’t have two of him as he was an excellent centre half as well as Centre forward.
The game really is different now, can you imagine Sterling or Kane finishing their career here as the Great Martin Peters did. Or signing someone like Martin O’Neill a year after he had won the European Cup ?
I heard someone doing work at Mike Walker’s home many years ago said to our former manager something like ” That Rob Newman is too slow” Walker is said to have replied ” If he had pace he would be at Manchester United”
It is apocryphal but I can certainly believe it.
I do feel at present the recruitment team are taking a punt on these players and it isn’t coming off as yet but as we have said on here before we are shopping at Aldi and not Harrods, so as long as the finances allow it is a risk worth taking.
OTBC
Hi Tim
I too can believe your tale about Mike Walker and the Rob Newman comments. I remember his debut when he was in centre mid and most of us were agreeing: *he’s good on the ball but so bl00dy slow*!
We’ve had the Murphy twins and yes indeed two Suttons would have been marvellous. They could have been interchangeable as well I would imagine!
Cheers
I didn’t see pukki mentioned best free transfer ever well done Webber a diamond in the rough 😃
Hi Kev
We didn’t go for first teamers this time around and Pukki is up there with Holty as an absolute bargain, but he was acquired for the first team from the get-go.
Timmy Krul was pretty shrewd too.
Cheers mate
I remember shortly before Webber arrived, either on Canary Call or The Scrimmage, one of the experts (possibly Eadie) suggested Norwich may wind down their academy. They said it’s often high costs with variable return.
I wonder what the truth is. I know we’ve gone on to sell a few academy players for excellent money in recent years (e.g. the Murphy’s), but I wonder what the true costs are. You’ve got facilities, staff wages, player wages, transfer fees. Especially if we’re paying millions of quid for potential stars that we eventually let go.
If the goal is to generate enough revenue to fund gaps, I don’t see it as a successful long-term strategy. At least not enough to be a significant contributor to the bottom line.
Hi Dave
A very interesting thought.
As far as the Academy is concerned my two cents is that it will attract the best youngsters we can get because I know the facilities are first class and am pretty sure that what the trendies would call *pastoral care* is pretty damn good as well.
However the staff levels seem high indeed, but maybe that is a common theme throughout the Club. All the recent recruits onto the coaching staff seem a little bit overblown to me in terms of numbers but’s a case of *what do I know?* really. Maybe everybody is essential and I’m just too dumb to see it.
Thanks – good comment.
I think we’re mixing a couple of things here.
1. Academy signings
2. First team signings
You can’t use Emi’s revenue as a first team signing, then say it pays for the academy signings. Emi’s profit is already accounted for in paying for 2-3 signings this summer (Gibson, Sargent, and possibly Tzolis).
That’s precisely why Alex and I excluded both Academy and first team signings in order to focus on players signed seemingly deliberately for the under 23s – and largely on a wing and a prayer it must be said.
I tried to narrow the focus but it’s been great to see I didn’t quite succeed as we got some seriously views from MFW readers that I’ve really enjoyed reading on a freezing Wednesday in Mundesley 🙂
Are you in a different time zone in Mundesley Martin, it’s Tuesday in the rest of Norfolk. Great read by the way, sorry for being a pedant.
Hi Bob.
If you lived with Mrs P and two feisty terriers you wouldn’t know what day it was either! Not at all pedantic – thanks for the laugh 🙂
Cheers
Martin bring back Robert Chase ! I take it back Robert we were all wrong in the end I myself apologize to you sir .
If anybody thinks you are serious you might be on you own with that one Jim 🙂
Enjoyed the article. Three thoughts…first, while a bit of a crap shoot, clubs can’t back away from running an academy. The acceleration in transfer fees for even a single “mid-tier” player make it prohibitively expensive, and beyond the financial ability, for the vast majority of clubs and with NC catchment area, historically the ‘pickin’s have been slim’ (hence the excitement about TC -he’s a local lad). NC have to look elsewhere for value-other club cast-off’s, secondary markets (the US, Scandinavia, France) where players can be found for reasonable fees -basically what they are doing.
Second, this challenge is like picking stocks where you hope for 2-3 doing really well, a few that do ‘ok’, and the rest you sell when it’s apparent your research and opinions didn’t amount to much. You are never going to know but if 2-3 work out then you’ve been successful -exactly the same with players…you are never going to know but if you aren’t in the game, you won’t find players.
Third, given the cost vs. selling price of Maddison, the Murphy twins, Lewis, Godfrey, Buendia over the last few years, I’d say that we’ve had far more success than most, if not all, clubs of our size.
Hi Ennis
Yes the points you make are interesting to be sure, particularly the analogy with the stock market, which has always been a foreign world to me.
Very few of us doubt the importance of the Academy I am sure. Yes we’d like to see a bit of *in the here and now* with regard to first team squad recruiting but that’s another article for another day of course.
Thanks for a good comment.
May I mention Louis Thompson now at Portsmouth..
Think we got £250,000 for him , can’t remember what we paid Swindon.
Hi Bernie
Louis Thompson had appallingly bad luck with injuries – it was one thing after another all the time he was with us, which was quite a few seasons.
I saw him a couple of times and felt there was something of the Korey Smith about him – at least to my eyes anyway.
Not sure what we paid Swindon either, but I think it was certainly well under £500k and although the add-ons would have been expensive, sadly only *first team debut* will have been invoked in this case.
Cheers
I heard that due to injuries city released him early and paid up his contract so that he had a chance of finding a new club.
Portsmouth took him on trial but only offered him a contract till the summer to prove himself.
This last summer was extremely expensive for city paying players of from the first team and it must have impacted the transfer money also paying off team Farke didn’t help for this window but that will be discussed in full over the coming weeks and months I would presume.
Yesterday this was part of the article above
Sebastian Soto is a Chilean-American guy who has been sent on loan to Porto II. There is a *buy* clause in this deal as well but I at least have never seen Soto in a Norwich shirt so have no idea what he might have become here.
Today the news is there has been a recall and will complete his season long loan at Livingston but no mention of a buy option.
The story doesn’t state if it was City or Porto who cancelled the loan but with few games for the B team maybe he hadn’t proved himself to them
I cannot see the loan being cancelled by City, tbh.
Josh Martin
Hi Ben
Josh M wasn’t specifically bought for the under 23s which is why we didn’t include him in the remit of the article.
Shame the MK loan didn’t work after Russ Martin left for Swansea.
Cheers
Brilliant piece Martin and some eminently readable responses. It is clear there exists a good working knowledge of the club amongst the readership.
I’ve always taken a great interest in the youth system and on the rare occasions a development side plays at carrow road I make my down to have a look. Usually I don’t Regret the decision.
I stated when the club decided to become “self funding” that in order to survive, let alone thrive, it would have to find – and sell, a player in the mold of Maddison every year. The fact is that even with two promotions to the premier league and a packed out stadium, selling is still required on an industrial scale in order to,stay afloat.
Watching the boys play, be it on YouTube or in the flesh throws up a few prospects who might make the grade. Three midfielders signed from lesser clubs, namely Clarke, Gibbs and Riley show huge promise and might make the step up. Obviously the forward line of Rowe, Kamara and DicksonPeters get the headlines and guarantee a goal or two every game.
The sad fact is that these young players will, should they make the grade be sacrificed to pay the bills at precisely the moment they start to threaten to take the club to the next level. I cite the examples of Buendia and Maddison here as proof.
Hi Chris
It looks like again we have a few out on loan that could comeback and show more promise.
Like with Josh Martin, Dickson-Peters and a couple of others going out on loan for one manager then finding out that a few days later he has gone can cause a problem for their period away.
It seem Reece McAlear is doing OK with a stable set up at Inverness CT and it would be great if all loans went as smoothly.
Similarly Gilmour and Williams must have wondered how their loan would have progressed under DF.
Thanks for the comment
Particularly Russ quitting MK for Swansea. Young Josh Martin would have been left in no man’s land at that point.
Hi Chris
I haven’t been to a development game since Covid restrictions but like to catch a couple during the season so I’ll be going along again soon.
The likes of Riley, Gibbs and Clarke were ndeed bought from lesser clubs – such as 1p5wich in one case of course 🙂
Your last sentence is very pertinent. The youngsters all know that if they come on in leaps and bounds their reward will be a season or so in the first team followed by a lucrative move for themselves and Delia too of course.
I’ve supported NCFC for well over 50 years now and all I’ve learned in this respect is that the phrase *we couldn’t stand in his way* remains a constant pain in the ar$e.
You cannot build a sustainable Premier League future with this approach in mind but it’s always been this way during my supporting life – and there is no prospect of change, at least not one that I can see.
Cheers
Very interesting Martin,
I think what really concerns me about these lads we buy and then loan out to other clubs is that we never really see what NCFC saw to actually buy them!
Soto came with a good reputation, Sinani also. but we’ve never really got a look at them!
I find it quite astonishing that within a couple of days of suggesting that we drop Tom Dickson-Peters into the Prem mix (scored 13, made 6 at U-23 level this season) when we were having a very dry period for goals scored, the lad was shunted out to Gillingham.
By all means develop for money to fund great things, but surely these guys deserve at least an outing from the bench , and if you do blood them in the Prem, doesn’t that improve their worth?
Cheers Martin
COYYs !!
Hi Kev
Yes there’s been a few strange loan-outs to me this season – I’ll see your Tom Dickson-Peters and raise it with a Sam McCallum and a Bali Mumba!
Of the list of players featuredin the article there are several I’ve never seen in Yellow at all, Sinani and Soto being prime examples.
I can only assume the reason we haven’t seen them is because they’re not up to it and some of them never will be of course. I hope I’m wrong!
Cheers