Different style of player. Milner is stronger and more combative than the somewhat lightweight Bentley but David has more skill as regards a lighter touch, better crossing ability and more creativity. Overall this season Bentley seems to have been in consistently better form than Milner but in just the last month or so for Newcastle Milner has looked excellent. To me Milner will eventually settle down in central midfielder as an attacking force going forward as he isn't really a winger. No idea where Bentley will eventually end up as!

Football can change very quickly and things can easily mess up but....have the events of this week changed views of the Academy? - Derbyshire scores two, starts against Chelsea (and looked a handful) and is picked for the England Under 21s. - Gallagher, recently handed a new deal, starts against Chelsea. Much needed CHEAP cover for Savage although playing him there against Chelsea may be asking a bit mucj - Andy Taylor and Tony Kane both go out on loan. Will we hear much from them again? Well...Derbs and Gally went on loan last year and are now part of the first team squad so it is possible particularly with Taylor as he is going to Huddersfield. Not too sure what will happen with Kane at Cercle Brugge... - Jay McEveley didn't work out but a £600,000 fee is nicely appreciated and could be increased to seven figures apparently if all the sell-on clauses are triggered (not sure how true this bit is or if just paper talk). Compared to when this thread was started it appears that there has been much reason for optimism regarding the Academy output in recent months. Particularly compared to the poor products before that. With the new TV deal likely to push prices for British players or experienced Premiership players ever higher: perhaps the question should be whether we should invest more heavily in the Academy rather than less?

It's probably a mix of things. The money is obviously important but there is also the chance to live in London and I don't think Benitez particularly valued Neill. In the summer he wasn't prepared to swap him for Warnock or really offer Rovers a good deal. They tried to get him on the cheap like with Bellamy whereas it seems West Ham really wanted him. Then even if relegated Neill will be on a free and able to command a big signing-on fee and someone will pay him a lot of money. Of course money is a huge part in this but he's hardly likely to say that is he?

It's not valid though...they offered half (if that - the Daily Express yesterday suggested they would only pay £25,000 a week) the salary West Ham offered. Is Champions League enough for that? I'd suspect that the majority of people would look after number one and go to West Ham. As for the relegation scrap - well, it's not permanent. If West Ham stay up then they will most likely continue spending in the summer and be in a good position to really challenge next season. Liverpool need to get over themselves as their name alone cannot get them players on the cheap. Man Utd don't need to get players on the cheap (Ronaldo is being offered a new contract over £100,000 a week despite his current having three years left) and maybe that is why are top and Liverpool aren't. You can't scrimp and save to win the Premiership anymore...it's all about throwing money around. I disagree with all that and unless you were actually faced with a decision which could cost you potentially £35,000 (or whatever) a week then you are just second guessing yourself. It's all very easy to say on a message board but when that contract is offered it may well be a whole new ball game. If Rovers lost out on players to Watford I would have to ask why it is that we cannot compete for signings with a club that will be playing Championship football next year. At least West Ham seem to have pots of cash and (possibly) a very bright future financed by a very rich man.

West Ham for £70,000 a week or Liverpool for...what? £30k a week - if that? I'd choose West Ham without a shadow of a doubt. Look at the money they are spending - they are a team on the way up and London is a great place to live. Certainly a lot more to do than if he just stayed at his gaff in Turton. Liverpool might have Champions League football but it isn't the be all and end all. Surely turning down an extra 40k a week is a major lack of ambition? Rovers fans are a strange bunch...many lambasted Bellamy going to Liverpool as he would be on the bench a lot then have a go at Lucas for West Ham for what will likely be a certain starting place! Why don't we just admit we like to slag players off when they leave?

Wasn't it more Flitcroft and Tugay in the middle? In fact I thought part of the bust-up with Souness was Dunn's insistence that the middle was his best position.

Has there been any confirmation on what the actual fee was? Today's Daily Mail mentions..."Curbishley insisted he had captured for £2.5million a world-class player who had been in demand." Yet the same article on their website has since been edited which suggests it was perhaps a mistake. Any news (Lee?) on the actual fee?

Rev - Lucas isn't cattle. He signed a contract and we have known he would not be signing another since the summer. Rovers could have sold him in the summer but it didn't suit them then but he played and most people think he did a decent job. Sure he made some mistakes but when didn't he? These are normal circumstances...Neill was under contract to the club yet gave plenty of notice that he was leaving. Hence we have brought in a long-term replacement as well as having made a profit of almost a million on him in transfer fees. Lucas has not in any way, shape or form shafted the club during his five and a half or so years as a Rovers player.

Errr...how? What did he do to shaft the club? Ferguson shafted Rovers, Neill conducted himself well and left in an altogether professional manner. If need be he would have seen out his agreed contract length so how on earth can he possibly have been said to shaft the club?

What really showed what he could do was winning a European trophy with Aberdeen...now if Sparky manages that for us it would nicely soften the blow should he leave.

He's getting £60,000 a week to play Premiership football in one of the world's greatest cities....yeah...what a loser! Apart from anything else...West Ham are a team on the up and I highly doubt they will go down. This won't be the end of their spending.

That's 1,872,662.50 GBP according to http://www.xe.com if you mean US dollars by that. More likely to be Aussie dollars so - £1,477,912.16, or £1.5million most likely. A good deal all round if true for someone with only a few months left on their contract. Of course a huge amount of it is to do with money...it his career and livelihood, if it a large part of it wasn't about money it would be rather strange. Good luck to him (as long as he doesn't slate us all in the papers soon) as I have said before as he hasn't done anything wrong and I think he's been, overall, pretty good for us this season. If you compare his professional manner at Rovers to how Barry Ferguson acted when he wanted to leave then I feel it is hard to think too badly of how Lucas has handled the whole affair. $150,000 AUD a week though...that is £60,000 a week! No way is he worth that. That is what we offered Bellamy to keep him here. Crazy money for a good - but certainly not great - defender.

I presume by 'around the club' they meant the fans more than the employees. That's how it seems to read as I doubt Benni or Shabani have hardly even heard of him. The success or otherwise all depends on whether we can actually get him on the pitch enough. Time will tell...

OK thanks for clearing that up I didn't mean to sound like you were trying to hoodwink us. Neill has come across as a nice enough guy and I hope that remains so.

I guess we will see then if he is really a "diamond geezer" or just good at telling people what they want to hear. I do hope he has the good grace to not just slag a town or their fans off who helped him make him a even more well-paid player. If his issue was with the board then that is fine. I've not got much respect for Henchoz any longer due to his comments about Rovers when he left. Even less when he tried to brush it off as being misquoted. Why not spill the beans if said anything negative? Or are you trying to mislead the posters on here by only letting us know the nice things? EDIT - Actually Brownie that sounds a bit harsh and I didn't mean it to, I was interested when you posted what he told you so thanks for that but am bit intrigued that you said he told you things that you won't pass on.

London would be a big draw for anyone. Working in one of the world's great cities would be worth a lot, it certainly beats driving to Blackburn each day. Besides it's full of Aussies - pouring pints usually - so he will feel right at home. At this point I wish him good luck as he was a good servant for us and didn't we even make some money on him? Can't remember how much we got him for from Millwall for but it wasn't much. Unfortunately I do think he may well shortly slag off the fans, the club and the town in the near future in the media. If so, he deserves no respect but I hope he proves me wrong. A tentative good luck to Lucas...

Lord only knows why Bolton think they are a bigger club. They haven't won anything for almost 50 years and I remember them in the bottom division in their crappy old ground which had a supermarket for half of one of the ends.

Aye...as if "three pints" is enough!

This is a lot of money and a great opportunity for Dunn...he would be a fool to turn it down on the off-chance that Rovers will match Birmingham's valuation in the future. This is his life and career and the club you support isn't enough to endanger that. If Rovers really want him they would match that bid and show they are serious. So far it certainly seems that Bolton want him more...they are willing to pay more (it seems) and they want him now. If Rovers really want him they will match the bid; it may even mean slightly more debt for the club but sometimes in football you have to go out on a limb.

I didn't think it was resorting into anything personal as I see it den - I like to have a good debate. However it does seem to have lead to us assuming rather intransigent positions on the subject. Actually I don't think Derbyshire has been particularly impressive and he certainly can't be compared to those strikers we have been mentioning. The only thing I think we should do is see him some more. If Derbyshire wasn't an Academy player then some of the people on this site (and I'm thinking of others on here than you) would not be so harsh and so critical. It's because he is a local lad that so many of the opinions (pro/anti) are skewed. As for the Academy...would it work better with a shake-up, some new personnel and some new ideas brought in? If Rovers don't try that then how will we ever know?

I didn't suggest some of the things you mentioned and you should have read it a bit closer - I mentioned Shearer's hat-trick at 17 for example. You mention Cole at Bristol City...since when were they in the Premiership? I'm sure if Derbyshire was playing every game for a Championship side he would be getting among the goals too. The only sustained loan period he had was at Wrexham when he put a load in the onion bag. Sheringham was getting his appearances at Millwall...not anywhere near as difficult to get into as Rovers now. The point was that they didn't become the players they were until later on, some might develop earlier yet to suggest they need to be in the team looking great then is untrue. Most get better as they get older whereas only a few (Fowler, Owen, Rooney) are great as a teenager. Even then it could be said that Owen and Fowler went downhill when in their mid-twenties. The question was - and I quote - "how many strikers come through, AFTER the age of 21". Well...Derbyshire is coming through now. Of the list I mentioned 70% continued to get better after the age of 21. It is harder for Derbyshire to come through now, in the age of big squads, than it ever has been. Rovers signed four strikers in the summer yet he is still pushing for a place. You keep changing the boundaries of the question...despite keep talking about Derbyshire having to be "Premiership quality" by this age but then compare him to Simon Garner (top-flight appearances = 0) who Kendall was happy to offload to Halifax I believe. Do you seriously think Garner would have broke through in this team at that age? As for "I wont check on the rest"...brilliant den, you even skipped Ferdinand to get to Sheringham and then ignored the rest. Those are obviously something special as I don't think we are expecting him to be a Shearer or a Wright. Derbyshire is showing enough to Hughes to get picked at the moment. It's only a bit over a month since he started against Nancy and he is doing well...apart from the finishing. If people wish to write him off I think they should give him the benefit of longer than that. Nonda has had longer to finally start showing something so why not give Derbyshire a break?

Very well...I can't go through every player so I will have a look at the top ten Premiership scorers of all time. This is probably unfair to my point of view as these tend to be exceptional players and therefore likely to break through young I'd have thought. I've just had to have a look at Wikipedia to quickly ascertain these. From the top ten some were teenage prodigies... So...we will take out Shearer (youngest player to score a top flight hat-trick - at 17), Owen and Fowler straight away. Even then it could be said that Shearer didn't start to really blossom until at Rovers when he was over 21. That leaves these... Andy Cole - Was a special talent but even so didn't play in the Premiership until almost 22. Thierry Henry - Again we are talking about someone a bit special here but even so he didn't hit his stride until at least 23 in his second season with Arsenal and I'd personally say not until the season after that even when inspiring them to the double. Les Ferdinand - At the age of 21 was being sent to Brentford and Turkey on loan after having started with Hayes. Definitely didn't come into his own until 25. First England cap when 26. Teddy Sheringham - Did at well at Millwall but it took a move to Nottingham Forest when 25 to make him start looking like the real deal. First England cap at 27. Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink - Was 23 before he started really slotting them away and had to move to Portugal to do so. Oh and even that was for the mighty Campioranese. Dwight Yorke - Played a long time for Villa but I would say he really started impressing about 96 when he was 23/24. Played before then but nothing too amazing, in fact that is giving the benefit of the doubt - only looked star quality in the year before he moved to Man U I felt. Ian Wright - At the age of 21 was turning out for Greenwich Borough. Didn't even play in the top flight until 25 - three months before his twenty sixth birthday. So....to answer the question... Taking the ten top goalscorers into account (who may be expected to be a bit special earlier as they are so good) then 70% haven't really got going at the age of 21. How's that?

For mine he wasn't. If another player had made EXACTLY the same misses then you wouldn't have said that. To be perfectly honest it seems that you are biased towards him because he is an Academy player. Your posts reflect this somewhat as you ignore any positives yet focus on them not being good enough. No I don't think he is the answer to anything but I'll at least be decent enough to see what he can do over a while before rushing to write him off. Give them a chance den; your negativity helps nobody. I didn't hear that - can you point me to the interview? I was surprised he started and think plenty of sub appearances may benefit him more. Running at tiring defenders gives him more of a chance of an impact.

If the first team continued to keep producing then the manager and coaches would be sacked. There may be a need for a shake-up somewhere...maybe some new scouts being brought in? Or more scouts? That said the Academy team seems to be performing well in the league but poorly in the cups. Rovers are third in their North West Academies league and ahead of the Man Utd and Liverpool youth teams among others. Fa Academies League Tables The question is...how many need to make the step up for the whole operation to be considered a success? Regarding Derbyshire - OK, a disappointment that he seems to be missing some sitters but it is encouraging that he is getting in the right place for them. It seems he is still pretty overawed by the whole prospect of playing at this level but hopefully when he gets used to it he'll start slotting a load of them away. For Hughes to start him ahead of Nonda, who had been in decent goalscoring form, shows that he obviously has something. Hughes seems him in training so we can only assume that he has been impressing.

It seems that although Cercle Brugge in Belgium aren't officially a feeder club for Rovers they may still be acting that way in reality. Cercle currently have on their books one Prince Vusumuzi Nyoni from Zimbabwe and an international. Apparently he may well be a Rovers player and he is playing at Cercle for a while, presumably to get EU citizenship as it would be easier in Belgium, as it is very hard to get a work permit to play in the UK. A poster from Brugge on the official board heard that Cercle got him as they used the name of Rovers to scare off the other clubs. The guy is a 22-year old left-sided midfielder and signed a one-year contract so may be a Rover soon. When asked about it he said "I never played for Blackburn but my manager had contact with the English club" said Nyoni. "The people of Blackburn made it possible for me to test with Cercle. In a way they pushed me that direction." After settling in he is now making the first team and appears to be doing well. Unfortunately it seems Prince is just his first name and he isn't actually royalty so we won't see a future king playing for Rovers unless William hurries up, quits the army and gets himself a contract. Here is the Prince in action for Cercle... Rovers also apparently are sending over a Nigerian player they have in the Academy but who can't play for them yet. Name is Osahon Eboigbe (a traditional Blackburn name maybe?) and he follows in the footsteps of Keith Barker, Sergio Peter, Luke Jones, Paul Weaver and Jerome Watt, all of whom were poor at Cercle. Barker and Peter in particular were said to have had a poor attitude while there. Here is a pic of the Nigerian anyway... It just goes to show how much bringing players through has changed in the last decade or so. Not only are Rovers branching out to scout players from Merseyside but they are also looking to sub-saharan Africa! I got this info from the very interesting Cercle thread on the official board - Official Board - Cercle thread. We also have a Cercle player on loan at the Academy for a year...Dwight Willie. Has anyone seen him? Unleaded is usually the best source for this kind of news...think he also posts as fourstar on the official board. Also on that thread there are pictures of the Rovers side winning an international tournament in Scotland. Anybody know when this was or any other details? This guy seems to be getting a Player of the Tournament award or something. Anybody know him?