Yeah, apparently, he's talking to a lot of clubs. Do you know for sure he's a Yanited fan? Charles Watts speculated he was because of the Scandinavian connection, but he admitted he wasn't sure.
So he'd make about 750k/yr at Arsenal and 1.5m at United. Either way, a boatload of cash for a 16yo. If you think he's a 10m+ asset in a few years it is worth it, as long as you can avoid every other kid wanting the same deal. 🚨 Arsenal offered 16-year-old Chido Obi-Martin £15k-a-week in his professional contract. Manchester United ‘gladly’ doubled those wages offered by Arsenal to secure the player’s signature. 🤯 [@Editor_ANS] #afc pic.twitter.com/1iXtCiPupH— afcstuff (@afcstuff) July 30, 2024
Good way to quickly get your club in Barca level financial trouble. Every promising academy kid is gonna expect a big contract from them now.
No they won’t. We apparently broke the wage structure for Nwaneri last year to keep him. Arsenal don’t seem Chido as being on that level. That’s how you make sure the top talents get theres. Just like we do with the first team. Good luck to him. Making 1.5 million a year at 16 is something we all hope for.
It is weird—how do you compare the guy scoring 10 goals per match in U18 to the guy who’s the youngest PL player ever? I think they think Ethan was further on at the same age, despite the gaudy numbers Chido put up. But sometimes evaluations like these are very difficult because trajectories are not linear.
You would hope that the club have a good read on how each player will develop, being around them every day. Maybe they think Nwaneri won't be swayed by money whereas Chido might party too much and not train as hard. That's kind of dangerous too, I'll bet there have been a ton of times when clubs bet on the wrong kid, a lot can change at such a young age. In general, these are pretty low risk, high reward bets. Maybe they lose out on 4 kids making 30k/wk, but if they hit on the 5th it more than makes up for it.
Chido’s hype is social media run amok. He could be a baller, but he was also playing for the youths. If this stuff was prominent when someone like Eddie Nketiah was going ham, who knows what attention he gets along with salary.
Doesn't Eddie still hold one of the English national youth team goal scoring records? If he had social media + agent hype back then he would have been referred to as Henry Jnr with his goals.
It’s a lot easier to score goals at that level as defenders are very naive and at a point where their physical potential has got them there rather than their brain (unless a massive potential talent) if he scores numbers in the prem we have let a big talent go but it will be interesting to see u tied have been known to chuck big money at players and for it not to work
Neither us nor the Danish national team were quite ready to move him up to U21s yet from what I read. Draw whatever inference from that you will.
Idk anything about his talent other than Arsenal don’t rate him higher than Nwaneri who was a must keep.
If he's good enough to play for any PL first team this season at ages 16-17, then not paying him 30k/week is malpractice.
agreed. supposedly we weren't willing to play him up to the u21s last season. curious why we thought he wasn't ready for u21s and MU seemingly thinks he can play 1st team? Also curious where/how he is gonna get minutes when they play a 1 ST setup and have 2 young 1st team STs.
Wonder if its a case of he isn't ready, Man U give him 5 mins here and there in games they have wrapped up, then when he hits 18 he gets loaned out for a year or two and if he is good enough he breaks into the team at 19/20 and if he isn't he is loaned or sold.
Salah-Eddine, Rosiak, Sagoe Jr and Gower are back with the U21s. It seems like Nwaneri, Lewis-Skelly, Heaven, Nichols are still with the first-team. Maybe Rekik as well. Still no Norton-Cuffy. Patino not involved again.— Jeorge Bird (@jeorgebird) August 3, 2024
Just came across this article on Max Dowman - current 14yo AM playing for our U18s. Not seeing any mentions of him on this thread, but looks like he might be one to keep an eye on for next 2-3 years. Arsenal's prime Ozil regen is tearing up the U18s - & he's only 14 years old (planetfootball.com)
I feel we’ve talked about him he was the one pinging the assists to Martin last season in a few of those huge goal scoring exploits. Edit: wow! We haven’t!
Norton-Cuffy is reportedly on his way to Italy for a medical before.joining Genoa on a permanent deal worth £3.5m, half up front and half as add-ons.
We've seen enough kids look amazing at that level that didn't make it. It's great to see kids doing well, but have to temper that with the realization that if 1-2 kids every five years become regulars, that's a huge win.