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At £10m, is this much heralded youngster worth a gamble?

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Ipswich Town striker Connor Wickham was linked with a £10million to Liverpool in the Daily Mail yesterday. Said to be one of the England’s brightest young stars, it would certainly tally with our new American owners transfer policy, and so the papers have put two and two together. Whether there is any truth to these rumours it will be interesting to see but if we did shell out £10m on a 17 year old, it would certainly show John W Henry and the Fenway Sports Group’s intentions. Liverpool Director of Football Strategy Damien Comolli was not shy of spending money on young British stars at Tottenham when he was involved in the £10million transfer for Gareth Bale, and if a bid for Wickham is pending, he will hope that Wickham works out just as well.

£10million on a 17 year old is a big gamble no matter who the player is but Wickham has been compared to Wayne Rooney in having the same technical skill at the same age. The big difference is height though, as Wickham is already 6ft 4 and 14 stone at 17, and would surely be a different player to Rooney. The youngster is a Liverpool fan and his idol is Fernando Torres, a player who he certainly has more in common with than Rooney. After spending his early teens at Reading, his army officer father moved from Aldershot to Colchester, forcing a move to Ipswich. His talent was immediately seen by Ipswich’s coaching staff and became the Tractor Boy’s youngest ever player at 16 years and 11 days when he came on against Doncaster Rovers in April 2009.

He started the 2009/10 as a member of the first team and scored his first senior goals in a League Cup first round tie against Shrewsbury Town. He scored two goals, as well as one in the penalty shoot-out, to help Ipswich into the second round. Although he played fairly regularly during the campaign, he only scored his first league goal in March 2010, but it was a special goal as he scored an injury time winner against Scunthorpe United.

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5 comments

  • Jackson says:

    1st of all he wants to play for Gunners or Spurs.
    2nd : We hve Daniel , Ngoo. Coming Up and 10mil is too much.
    3rd : In our current squad we hve Ngog performing really well.
    4th : We need reputed young talented clinical striker. If we r ready to spent 10mil fr ths raw talent. Thn y cant we try for Louis Suarez for 23mil, he is 24yrs, has shown what he is capable of. So buy him come Jan and save our season Roy.

  • chunky says:

    In your dreams boyo!

  • Jay Wright says:

    “At £10m, is this much heralded youngster worth a gamble?”

    NO!

  • vjm says:

    life is also a gamble… same thing we have done with c ronaldo. Do you think suarez and other star players will come to us to play europa league? Do you belive we will reach up to 4th spot this season with roy?
    We need to find such raw talent and be ready for next season, thats the reality.

  • stan says:

    paying 10 mil for a 17 yr old youngster who wud’nt make the first team straight away and who has been injured and out of form lately is too much of a gamble…
    i’d rather buy honda for the same amount..

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