The club only thought he was worthy of a 2 year contract last year and that is their prerogative. Holgate feels he is better than the contract he's been offered now and that is HIS prerogative too. Neither of them have done anything wrong, they've both taken calculated risks that may or may not have paid or pay off. What in my opinion is out of order is alienating holgate, forcing him to train with the under 21s and freezing him out of the squad. What purpose does it serve? It lowers holgates value as it makes it clear we want rid. It pisses him off and ensures he definitely won't want to stay and it says to future potential signings that we have no issue with treating them crap if we want to. I just don't get why we are doing it
Maybee they dont want him unsettling any of the first team squad. You and me dont know what gos on behind closed doors whats been said or done.
If he wants to go keep him fit but don't risk getting him injured if were likely to get a fee.... Don't see a problem with it. If he wants to go that's upto him if he's rejected the contract and has decided to look at other offers he's put himself out of first team plans. He's a decent young player with ambitions higher than barnsley but I can't help feel an agent has turned his head a bit early and may do more harm moving him on now than later.
I'm assuming there's more going off that we aren't aware of, and probably never will be. Also, if we're selling him then it makes sense to not see him injured.
I really hope that the lad has not got himself a rogue agent, who is trying just to cash himself in on a possible deal, or who has invented the Villa link just to try to get him an unrealistic deal at Oakwell. Some agents do well by their players, but others use players as pawns in a game in which they are really only interested in what they can get out of any deal, rather than what is best for the player. I can't help thinking that, if Villa were serious, there would have been updates to the progress of the story. Mason is yet young. He showed a lot of potential, being both strong and fast, but he also showed the need to develop further before being the finished product. I think that a move to the premiership with Villa has come too soon and that it could well back-fire in terms of his career. The problem is that, if you evaporate into thin air at a premiership club in your teens, no one remembers you and you have built up no reputation to make you attractive as, say, a twenty year-old. He would do better to sign up and develop further with us, but with assurances regarding a transfer, should it materialise. It would be tragic if he were to become unrealistic about his value at this stage and end up falling between two stools. I hope that his agent might see the sense in this, rather than the pound notes which might flutter his way. Good agent, or rip-off merchant? Time will tell.
