At times prices will be high – but that is just the way of the world and the big clubs don’t really need to penny pinch, do they? Case in point was the signing of Andy Carroll in the January transfer window, now I think most people know that at the moment there is no way he is worth £35m. However, he is a talented young striker and if he scores anywhere near the amount of goals in the Premier League and for England that has been predicted, then Liverpool’s gamble will have paid off. In a similar way Manchester United probably overpaid when they signed Chris Smalling and Arsenal when they signed Theo Walcott. But that is just the way it is and the selling club are not keen to sell their best talent – so they are going to want compensation for all the years they have spent training and developing the player.
Premier League clubs could do a lot worse than having a little look at the Barcelona squad – who proved themselves to be the best European club side. Their squad though has a definitive Spanish core to it and features 12 Spaniards in their first-team alone. So it stands to reason that this is a reasonable model to follow, but in order to do that English sides must commit to buying English players and also developing and giving the best English players their chance in the first-team instead of foreign players. But with the financial fair play rules coming in soon a certain amount of this may need to happen anyway and if so much the better.
If we fast forward 10 years and looked through the top squads within the Premier League – wouldn’t it be fantastic if each squad featured at least 10 top quality English players. Liverpool may be best placed to make that dream a reality. With two men that were involved in the set-up at Barcelona in Jose Segura and Rodolfo Borrell they should develop it in the right way. Both in terms of developing youth players as they have done with Jay Spearing and Martin Kelly; but also with the signing of the best English talent – something they started with the capture of Andy Carroll and Jordan Henderson and will hopefully continue during the summer. And if they do it that way and other clubs follow so much the better.
The article was written by James Kent for FootballFancast.com. Make sure to check out the latest news, blogs and podcasts at FFC – ed.
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I agree. I think that we have so many players that don’t progress because they are either stuck at a lower club or in some cases, don’t get onto the first team e.g Man City.