DubaiSpur
Ian Walker
For all the sneering about looking at Grealish, Aarons and others of that ilk, there's the unavoidable fact of the home-grown quota which has to inform our purchases and sales. Right now, we need a couple more in who qualify - in the same way that Chelsea threw big money at Drinkwater and Barkley to assist them with compliance.
We need 1, maybe 2 at most. Other than that, the HG issue will fully resolve itself in the summer when Eriksen, Toby, Wanyama, Janssen, N'Koudou and Vorm (at the least) all move on.
Remember, we need 8 HG players total in the registered 25-man squad, of which 4 need to be club-grown - these are UEFA's rules for the CL.
- Home-grown means at least 3 seasons between the ages of 15 and 21 spent in England, and
- club-grown means three seasons spent at the club between the same ages.
Given these rules, when that lot listed above above leave, they will leave, at the very least;
- Kane (HG, CG),
- Dele (HG),
- Winks (HG, CG),
- Rose (HG, CG),
- Walker-Peters (HG, CG) and
- Skipp (HG, CG)
...as a home-grown core to build around. Add a home-grown third keeper (Whiteman, De Bie, some other youth GK), and we have 7 HG players and 5 CG players. Add just one youth player like Amos and we already meet the HG number requiredm and go to *6* CG as well.
And I've even left out Trippier, because I think he needs to be moved on too.
So yes, we need at least one HG incoming. But that doesn't mean we need to build our transfer window around that, nor should we.
Sessegnon should be top priority this summer, regardless of what else happens (imo). Max Aarons should be on our radar, although Norwich are certs to go up and he's won the EFL Young Player of the Year Award, meaning any transfer will have to be next year, if that.
But once we get one of those two, that's it. We can replace the Amos-equivalent with this player, or keep Amos and move on Walker-Peters (for example). And then we're done. We don't need to make it a bigger issue than it is, or one that should define our transfer window by chasing the Grealishes of the world.
And if we just skip the Championship bargain-hunting and go for someone like Wan-Bissaka at 50M, then we can fill that HG spot with Premier-League quality.
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