@catcherintherye i think RLC makes sense for us and (as you mentioned)Silva has plucked out Chalobah from Chelsea whilst at Watford.
RLC is clearly a step up but what i find intriguing is that if were prioritising an English CM then why didnt we go for Maddison who seems to tick alot of boxes...
I wonder whether weve already got our targets lined up and are just offloading players before we move on anyone...as Brands doesnt seem to be the type to wait on things...
What i would be quite interested in seeing is some moves for the Chelsea young players wh9 seem to be very good such as Hudson-Odoi and Trevoh Chalobah who seems a far better prospect.
If Brands follows his PSV model he will focus on young English players + a sprinkling of South American kids...quite exciting.
Currently I think it's quite difficult to really make sense of much of the business, links and approach. Not only do we have very little to do go but it is quite clear that we have a DOF who will have a very specific strategy that it's unlikely he will massively renege on. He doesn't seem the sort, in any of his previous jobs to move outlook based on a specific players availability. We are also seemingly conducting business with very little leaks (at least the outgoings) and are also in somewhat of a predicament when it comes to budgets. How far that predicament extends is to be seen and open for debate, but to some degree we have to move lads out before others come in. It becomes very difficult to speculate effectively on transfer dealings.
I am not sure why we didn't go for Madisson. Norwich fans speak very highly of him, and in the current market place, 24 million pounds for a 21 year old with his goal output is far from exorbitant. There is the possibility that the manager, having seen Dowell perform well in a similar role at the under 21's just felt he was a player we no longer needed. It could have been a link that dated back to the previous regime that had no legs under Brands? Maybe Brands/Silva wants to upgrade and feels we could get RLC? Maybe he feels we get better value for money from abroad with his knowledge of the market?
I am disappointed we didn't make a move, but I am quite happy to leave the dealings to Brands (and Silva) for now, see what they do this window (and probably the next 2-3) and hope to see a pattern emerging of consistency. That is more important to me than James Madisson or any single player.
I agree wholeheartedly with you that we should be aggressively targeting youth players of Chelsea and City (but also United, Liverpool, Arsenal) who simply do not get the same exposure we give players. We do not do enough in the media to highlight this. Last season DCL, Vlasic, Davies, Holgate, Kenny, Baningime & Lookman all started games, and most of the above had regular runs at different stages of the season. Thats 7 players under 21. No other side comes close to this. When you factor in all the lads who made their debut in Cyprus it becomes more impressive. It should allow us considerable leverage in attracting the best players at other academies who currently get stuck and the club should be far more aggressive in it's output on this.
It will be interesting to see if Brands adopts an approach of buying domestic talent. Dutch local talent is substantially cheaper than English talent. The imperative to sell does not exist in anything like the same way. It will be interesting if he adopts the same approach, or whether we target young (often cheaper) European players. Both strategies have limitations and I'll be interested to see which direction we go in.
