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Lewis Gibson (now playing for Plymouth Argyle)


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I'm not having that £6m is nowt for a 16 year old mind.

 

Would have been like someone spending £1.5m on a 16 year old in the mid-90s or something. That would have raised eyebrows at the time. Was that approximately what Pennant went to Arsenal for? He was extremely highly rated with the game. I've never seen anything up until the past fortnight about Gibson's potential. It's just assumed he has something because it's £6m.

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Madrid just signed a 16 year old for £39.5 million.

 

Yeah but that is fucking mental. :lol:

 

That's like paying £4-5m for a kid in the days the likes of Ferdinand, Collymore, Bergkamp, etc were going for £6-8.5m.

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It is far from certain that young Lewis will prove to be good business for Everton. 75% of 16 year olds who sign a contract for a full time scholarship leave the professional game before they're 21. Even the very very best players at that age are still a risk. For example, England had a very good U17 squad in 2010 who won the European Championship. These guys should be in their prime now; I recognise the names of a third of them as Premier League players: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/8713980.stm

 

Good luck to the lad and to Everton for believing in him.

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It is far from certain that young Lewis will prove to be good business for Everton. 75% of 16 year olds who sign a contract for a full time scholarship leave the professional game before they're 21. Even the very very best players at that age are still a risk. For example, England had a very good U17 squad in 2010 who won the European Championship. These guys should be in their prime now; I recognise the names of a third of them as Premier League players: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/8713980.stm

 

Good luck to the lad and to Everton for believing in him.

 

A more relevant statistic would be the percentage of players under 21 who have left the professional game after a transfer fee of say 4m+ has been paid for them at some point.

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You factor in inflated transfer fees over the last 20 years and I'll do the searches  ;) (not really, btw). I take your point though. I was just shocked at how academies and centres of excellence, in the UK at least, seem to be getting it so wrong. I included the England squad on the assumption that they would be the best of the best, and whilst most if not all are still in the game, around 2/3s of them have (thus far at least) found a career at a lower level.

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