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Man City eye swoop for highly-regarded Everton academy keeper
Manchester City are the latest club to be linked with a move for Everton U18s keeper Douglas Lukjanciks.
The 16-year-old, who is a dual Latvian national, has only made a handful of appearances for Leighton Baines's side but he is already an England U-17 international and has been attracting attention from potential suitors this season.
In March, there was talk of a host of clubs including Bayer Leverkusen, RB Leipzig, Marseille and Southampton eyeing a move for Lukjanciks and now Manchester City are reportedly lining up a £10m part-exchange bid for this summer.
The report is from former Sun journalist, Alan Nixon, whose track record is pretty poor on this stuff, but it does indicate the fact that Lukjanciks is being looked at by other clubs.
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Everton's need to sell players to ease their financial woes means that there will be plenty of stories like this and no shortage of eyes on the pick of Club's young talent.
Reader Comments (7)
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2 Posted 14/05/2024 at 20:31:11
As much as we want local, homegrown players in the first team, as Man City and Liverpool have shown, a great way to finance success is to grow players, sell them and repeat.
3 Posted 15/05/2024 at 17:44:00
4 Posted 16/05/2024 at 21:08:32
But who knows how their careers will unfold. Lawrence for example is now surrounded by so much talent in the City academy that it's hard to see him breaking through. He's only managed 11 games in the U21s this season. Had he stayed with us, he might well be close to first team appearances.
Indeed, City's academy is now so good, and so well stocked that it's a good place to pick up 18- to 21-year-olds who are ready / close to ready for our first team. Loads of their U21 side are out of contract this summer – including many with lots of youth international experience.
Their captain, 20 year old Micah Hamilton even played and scored against Red Star Belgrade this season for the full team. He is very, very unlikely to make it at City but could be a great signing for us for just a development fee (he's out of contract too).
So sad as it is to lose players, we can also work the system to our own advantage.
5 Posted 16/05/2024 at 21:21:51
I remember when Real Madrid were going all Galactico and they kept buying very expensive players and selling better ones at a much cheaper price. What fee would Cole Palmer fetch right now?
6 Posted 22/05/2024 at 09:16:50
Maybe if your academy is already listed as elite, you can't move club until you're 18 and have signed a professional contract.
Maybe the compensation could be looked at. If you poach a kid then the club that developed gets 50% of all future transfer fees received for the next 5 years.
Something needs to be done to stop this. When everyone was going on about Klopp's kids, did you notice only one actually came through from Liverpool? – All the rest were poached from other academies.
In today's world, Rooney would have been poached before he even kicked a ball for us.
7 Posted 04/06/2024 at 22:11:54
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1 Posted 14/05/2024 at 03:43:16
The price for Ishe Samuels-Smith (£3 Million + add-ons) will now serve as the floor for anyone to get Thelwell calling back re any of our prospects.
A couple of sales like him, Cannon and Simms might hurt in the long run (let's have a recap 5 years from now and see if we will have excruciating pain on those sales), but they are essential to help minimise the number of sales at 1st team level.