Oliver Wilkinson

Let's say he joins Man City or perhaps Chelsea.

They'll throw him into their u18s team straight away. In a soulless acacademy more like a factory.
It'll take him a few years to even have the chance to move to the u21s.
The, if he's half decent in the u21s they will look to send him out on loan to an EFL club. Like, er say... Barnsley?

Why not stay at Barnsley who have offered a clear path to the first team. Once you are a teenager playing regular EFL football the opportunities are endless.

Terrible decesion but I fear it's the agents work. Not his. Poor lad.

 

I agree tho I would say he’s chose to jump thru rather than having slipped thru

 

Feels a bit of a harsh stretch to blame the club for this. Flip it round and say we hadn’t given him an opportunity to play and was leaving for that reason then people would just be critical about that.

 

Its a shame and not good for us. But for him, maybe he is more ambitious. Maybe he believes his career will develop elsewhere in a club that can invest and have success. Its a risk of whether he gets any real game time at a bigger club but you cant blame him really. We arent as attractive a club as we used to be and im not sure whether our academy is the envy of the junior world.

 

Because he will be offered thousands and thousands a week. Its easy to criticise a young lad, but guarantee 99% of us would do the same thing. As someone mentioned above, 1 bad injury could all be over.

 

Good luck to the lad. Looked a very exciting talent.

 

No fault of the clubs by the looks. Read the statement from Bobby Hassell and sounds like they tried everything to keep him having looked after him from a young age. Sometimes the greed of agents and the temptation to be at a big club proves too much of a dangled carrot. Only thing I would say is he will need to standout and be extremely good to get a opportunity at a top club rather than developing and playing more at Barnsley. Good luck to the lad but you often see these types of moves failing and the player drifting the way side. Especially at 16 years old.

 

Yeah cos the big clubs won’t have noticed him playing for the youth set up and Captain of England.

Ridiculous comment.

 

Probably be at Rotherham in 5 years, after wasting away in City's farm, sorry.. academy

 

I don't get this narrative that youngsters are always better off around our first team than being "anonymous" in a bigger academy.

The simple question is: is a player more likely to have a career in professional football playing for (say) Chelsea/Man City academy, than for Barnsley.

"But he will get first team minutes at Barnsley." (He can go on loan from a prem club for this).

"But he's homegrown." (Aye but it goes both ways. Every other player we have left their own/home club at some point and ended up in tarn).

"He' had his head turned." (Yes, likely by a better offer.)

Good luck kid. Let us get our compensation, let him go and have a great career, win the prem, win the ballon d'or, get signed by PSG for 100 mill, and let us take our 20% sell on fee

 

That’s the dilemma for a player at his stage of his career does he stay and hope it works out or go and take the money and hope it works out.

 

He needs to look at what happened to Tom Wooster and tremble in his boots. I hope that he has an alternative career lined up. Still not too late to stay here and graft for a place in the team. We need good defenders.

 

Could be the next Paul Digby.

 

Very much doubt a handful of minutes in a pizza cup including u21 teams had very little impact. Just feels another dig at the club. Weve produced talent before, this kid seemingly has it, so let's keep on doing it- just with much more regularity...

 

I agree mate. Lots end up having much worse careers than him too. Wish him all the best mind.

 

He could be the next H from Steps.

 

wont be significant its all agreed as part of the eppp scheme.

it’s something like £3k a year from 9-12 years old and then I think as are or were a category 2 academy 25k a year for 12-16 so looking around 109k which considering we have invested 7 years into him doesn’t appear to be a great return tbh.

 

May aswell just close academy if it's that easy for so called big clubs to pick up best talent