It’s a mess…
So basically he is for sale but we don’t want to sell him for peanuts.
Great to see your refreshing positivity back in the thread Paul 
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Money and agents continue to ruin football as a genuine competitive team sport 
Don’t shoot the messenger Jim, blame that goofy German fellow.
Well Southampton did OK last night with their star player refusing to play so maybe this is good news for the Hammers.
Manchester United to trigger the extension clause in Fellaini’s contract to keep him there another 12 months, rather than see him go at the end of his nominal contract. I suppose they are trying to elbow their way to the top. 
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Liverpools owners need to open up the purse, as they have clearly underinvested during the summer. This is the time of the season where you have 4 - 6 of the subs on due to injuries, ACON or some other bullshite.
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We don’t agree often Bob but…
If only we had a new Fowler, McManaman, Owen or Gerrard coming through the youth system.
Really don’t know why Premier League clubs bother with anything but the first team.
Woodburn is very very promising, but these things can go either way.
Graham Taylor dead.
Just look at Jordan Rossiter - seemed to have the world at his feet but then got injured playing for England U19’s and is now languishing at Glasgow Rangers.
Do I not like that.
RIP
There’s no point any more - agents would have them angling for moves away within a few appearances for the first team.
Or when they got an England call up they’d have their head turned by the other overpaid muppets in the dressing room and go back to their clubs with a completely inflated sense of their own worth.
Sadly young talent is being stymied by the negative influence of money whereby players and their agents value the immediate thrill of lavish contracts over the development of their talents and careers. Its not good for the game either as more commercially advantaged clubs stockpile young up and coming players, don’t play or develop them and they miss valuable game time at the critical stage of their development.
Explain to me how do you motivate and keep a young player hungry once you’ve made him a multi-millionaire at 1the age of c 19/20 etc?
Liverpool now have a salary cap of £40k/annum for academy players
Raheem Sterling in a nutshell.
What’s the upper age limit for being regarded as an academy player?
Edit, I thought this was 9-16?
The Reds’ new policy means 17-year-olds in their first season will not be able to earn more than a basic salary of £40,000 a year, the Telegraph reported.
I imagine any 17 year old that broke into the first team would also have an agent and therefore could be being encouraged to a move elsewhere where perhaps there wasn’t such a policy.
I don’t think its necessarily about wage caps in general, as whilst there are obscene amounts of money being pumped into clubs through TV and media contracts, players and agents will find ways to get their greedy snouts in the troughs some way or other.
You can’t put the genie back in the bottle but I do wonder whether eventually people will not want to pay to watch an uncompetitive and inferior product which imo is what football has become since the Premier League. Problem is I think its too late and the modern phenomena of large scale fan affinity with who-ever is currently successful will continue and therefore these people will not care so long as they are seen to be ‘supporting’ the winners and commercially embedding this imbalanced uncompetitive scenario.
Grumble, grumble, its not like what is was in my day etc etc.
Because there was a long gap between games.