The Kraken

The only part I agree with that is the part about sanctioning the purchase of someone like J-Rod. We will doubtless open the purse strings much more than we've ever done, even taking into account how the transfer market has rocketed in recent years. But if you take the likes of Bridge, Richards, Walcott etc, they all pretty much put in a transfer request to leave, so it wasn't just a choice to sell them. We are now more of a position where we seemingly don't have to sell, which is an advantage. But I don't agree woth your night and day analogy. In any case, it matters not.

Yes, very true. Also true. I think this is yet to be seen; my first thought is that I don't think I agree, and if so (as you suggest) only be for an extra year or two at the very most (and not seeing top class players stay with us until 22, 23, 24).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/a/arsenal/4614538.stm Southampton chairman Rupert Lowe told the club's website: "We are bitterly disappointed. The purpose of developing the best Academy in the country is not to sell scholars to larger clubs. "We have done everything to keep Theo at Southampton. But his family and advisors are determined that he leave this club and go to Arsenal.

If its anything like the WC or Euros then the whole squad is on the bench for every game.

Well they can if its clearly a fully grown adult and they used a child's ticket. Or a senior ticket and they're not that old. Student tickets granted will be very tough to check, but as stated in the post above mine, the need to show proper ID to actually buy one in the first place is also a deterrent in itself.

Sorry but I disagree entirely. Lowe got (at the time) great prices for Theo and Bale. And Theo was only under pre-contract so it was potentially an ever tougher sell, to get a deal worth at the time up to £12M was "eye-popping" to coin a current phrase. I'll criticise Lowe for plenty; for extracting a decent price for a player, no way, he was extremely good in that regard. Add in the likes of Bridge, Dean Richards, Kevin Davies and he had a decent record at getting top dollar for players.

Yep, exactly, that is entirely my point. I've been saying this for some time and have consistently been shouted down on it, with various posters claiming that that days of AOC, Theo etc leaving so early are behind us and we now have a much better chance of keeping players until their early twenties and beyond, even if the big clubs come calling. I simply don't believe that to be the case.

He did it once for Man City, I have it in mind it was David James he brought on up front. He also did it for the England U21s, I can't recall the name of the keeper who came on, but he was awful. Edit, it was Joe Lewis.

Not really. The new turnstiles supposedly have an alert system for when a concession ticket goes through; plus they're supervised by stewards who can visibly check who has just come through the turnstile, and whether they seem obviously not to be a "concession".

The proof will be in the pudding. If Shaw, JWP progress to the first team, U21s, fringes of the national team and stay with us until 22/23 years of age then we'll have advanced. I still think this is an enormously difficult area to just say "we're well financially backed and ambitious now so its less likely to happen if Man Utd come calling". despite what they're doing in Germany or wherever. Rooney at Everton is the "typical" example I'd use for the PL.

Yes, I know its not the literal translation. A bit like "putain" in French literally means whore but means a hundred and one other things in a different context.

Vaffanculo.

You don't recall correctly. He was on a pre-contract agreement with us. He also signed a pre-contract agreement with Arsenal, until he signed pro when turning 17. Poor choice of reference material, but his wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_Walcott

I think your mate has mugged you off for his bird. Bros over hos.

That rings a bell. Interesting; I'll DEFINITELY feel more comfortable about this in 10 days time then. EDIT: Not the most reliable surce, but an Arsenal blog: http://goonerboy.blogspot.co.uk/2006/05/theos-performance-few-transfer-rumours.html

Theo was under a pre-contract agreement for us when he left for Arsenal. There was a great deal of worry at the time that he could potentially leave on the cheap if it went to tribunal, Lowe did very well to extract such a significant fee. It seems to be quite a grey area to me.

Where did I say it wasn't binding? I just imagine a pre-contract agreement is easier to break than a formal contract.

Once again confirmation that he hasn't yet signed a pro contract, just a pre-contract agreement. I'll feel more confident of the situation in 10 days time.

There we go. Top stuff.

What have you provided to this thread other than moaning about others ruining it? There's some reasonable discussion going on if you choose to notice it and partake in it. What irony.

Well I'm expecting it to be a very swift and very firm rebuttal from SFC.

They're worth that money only if they go on and fulfill the potential. There's absolutely no guarantee of that; particularly for Luke Shaw who hasn't yet played a league game and still has a lot of growing and development to go through. Look at the two lads who were poached from Leeds by Chelsea, Tom Taiwo and Michael Woods. Chelsea paid £5M for them back in 2006. Both have played for their England age groups. Yet they were last seen playing football for Carlisle and Yeovil. The expensive risk didn't pay off; they didn't develop further as it was hoped they might.

Absolutely right. This thread was plodding along just fine until a couple of people got too angry about the genuine opinions of fellow posters. While that's true to some extent, if Shaw were to decide to go it would be a significant kick in the teeth for our oft-stated ambition of producing and keeping young talent. Of course it doesn't prove anything either way, it would be wrong to suggest that our academy is in meltdown if he leaves, and equally wrong to say that we'll never have players poached again if he decides to stay. It would just set something of a precedent and send out a sign that, even though we're back in the Premier League and have decent financing behind us, our ability to keep hold of young talent when the big clubs come calling is seemingly no better (or worse) than it ever was.