Yes, we have, but don't I recall someone saying at a fans forum that the domestic market was getting increasingly harder for clubs like Southampton and that they were expanding their scouting network abroad? As mentioned above, in a general sense it could be good for British football. We'll probably resort to picking up a few rejects from other academies and hope they are late developers (the model started by Hoddle after he gave up management).
Is it? The theory says it’s better, but I’m not sure reality does unless we get the coaching and attitude right, which had levels influenced by foreign methods. If you go back to the 70s/80s/90s where there were less foreign youngsters brought in, how good were England? I hope it is a benefit for England but I won’t hold my breath.
The new rules will also distort the market for all players. The harder it is to get permits, the more clubs we’ll be competing with, because you can only go for established first team players in major leagues and internationals from countries with decent FIFA rankings. I’m sure a lot of clubs will be pouring over the league coefficients now, trying to figure out if it’s worthwhile to do loan agreements with the likes of Sporting Minsk that they can do work permit deals with. The risk of those kinds of deals becomes huge. If injury limits minutes to below permit threshold a player could lose a year of their career. As for the academy kids, we have an advantage in that we’re established and have good youth recruitment. That won’t last for long when you have 50 other teams who now are forced to figure out how they can get the best domestic young players due to narrowing options overseas. This will be good for creating opportunities for UK players. However it’s better to do that with quotas and limits so you don’t destroy a marketplace. Blanket bans have much more chance of doing major damage. The damage this does to clubs who are not Category 1 will be significant.
https://www.southamptonfc.com/news/...up-southampton-vs-coventry-city-december-2020 3 - 0 win, should have had a lot more goals.
Saw most of the game. A really good watch. You can already see them playing more like the 1st team. The one touch football was very pleasing to see. The U18s will no doubt face tougher opposition for most of the season but this win will have done them no harm at all. Cauke getting a lot of attention but Carson and Mitchell caught my eye too. Although he did not have a lot to do, keeper Ollie Wright made a wonderful double save toward the end
Here's a secret scout report from The Fail on Ramello Mitchell... THE SECRET SCOUT: Southampton's rising star Ramello Mitchell has all the necessary assets | Daily Mail Online