Real raid for Esteban Granero?

[IanTheRed]

This rumour was posted on the Blog yesterday, as an actual Inside piece of information across the t

[LFCman]

Didn't SCarter talk about this lad yesterday and he is playing at the u-19 European Championships at the moment?

Spain have some top youngsters though. They seem to do well in most youth competitions.

England on the other hand...

[Peter Delvechio]

It's woomud he already has a buy-out clause, such is his perceived talent and value.

[dww]

Is 18 the age when Spanish clubs can offer a player a contract? It seems unlikely that we would be willing to spend much on a youngster, so I would have thought we would have been looking to poach him Barragan style.

[FowlerLeftFoot]

are we really planning to use him or just buy him and let him rot in the reserves?

[LFCman]

But all players in Spain have buy-out clauses when they sign professional contracts. It's law.

[IanTheRed]

Is 18 the age when Spanish clubs can offer a player a contract? It seems unlikely that we would be willing to spend much on a youngster, so I would have thought we would have been looking to poach him Barragan style.

I would have thought it was younger than that, but it does seem quite easy to 'poach' a player from Spain - the likes of Cesc Fabregas and Pique at Manure were both poached as kids from Barca - so you might be right.

[anfieldanfield]

The U19 Championship is being shown on Eurosport I think.

Anyone know when Spain's next game is so we can do a bit of spade work for Rafa ?

Hopefully we sign that 'de la red' fella from Madrid's 'B' side as well, remember him ?

[LFCman]

http://www.uefa.com/competitions/under19/index.html

They play Scotland next...poor Scots.

Although they did well to get a draw v Portugal.

[homer1]

Always wary about these exciting new talents - we've obviously had our fair share of "the next ..." type players but this guy, for all his potential is only playing for Madrid's C team. I can't help thinking about similarly labelled players at Madrid like JuanFran who was loaned out last year (Espanyol???) and Portillo, who was going to be the next Raul - think he spent a year on loan at Fiorentina or somewhere like that. Both of these players had great potential, had at least played in the 1st team but since have virtually disappeared.

[anfieldanfield]

Always wary about these exciting new talents - we've obviously had our fair share of "the next ..." type players but this guy, for all his potential is only playing for Madrid's C team. I can't help thinking about similarly labelled players at Madrid like JuanFran who was loaned out last year (Espanyol???) and Portillo, who was going to be the next Raul - think he spent a year on loan at Fiorentina or somewhere like that. Both of these players had great potential, had at least played in the 1st team but since have virtually disappeared.

Ofcourse, it's a gamble, but you have to take that risk with youngsters.

Our current reserve side has a good handfull of potentially exciting talent, Anderson, Hamill, Hobbs, Antwi, Roque etc, but in reality, maybe only one (if we're lucky) will ever be able to hold down a long term place in our first team squad.

The thing is you can't risk a Fabregas or a Lennon slipping through your fingers.

[RedWolverine]

Didn't SCarter talk about this lad yesterday and he is playing at the u-19 European Championships at the moment?

Spain have some top youngsters though. They seem to do well in most youth competitions.

England on the other hand...

This sure is the guy that SCarter was talking about, and I think he has posted a few other bits about it as well.

[homer1]

Ofcourse, it's a gamble, but you have to take that risk with youngsters.

Our current reserve side has a good handfull of potentially exciting talent, Anderson, Hamill, Hobbs, Antwi, Roque etc, but in reality, maybe only one (if we're lucky) will ever be able to hold down a long term place in our first team squad.

The thing is you can't risk a Fabregas or a Lennon slipping through your fingers.

True, but if he has a Eur12m buy out clause built into his contract and Madrid don't want to sell, then it could well be an expensive risk to take, costing money that we need to earmark for 1st team players.

That said, I am sure we would get him cheaper than that

[dww]

Where is this value for the buy out clause coming from?

[homer1]

Where is this value for the buy out clause coming from?

Read it on another site mate, not sure how accurate the actual figure is but there is definetely a clause