Only time will tell, maybe Bell had one 'peak' season when they got promoted and is now back where he belongs whereas if Beck can maintain his potential he'll perform higher for longer. You need to park this one up i reckon.

A promotion and a Prem season would confirm that. Personally on Williams i thought for the £250k it took to buy him he was ok but that's it, always to me looked like a centre half playing at full back.

The only real answer to this daft argument is if Williams was here and Beck was his backup i think after seeing what he could do fans would be wanting him to start over Derek and any coach we've had apart from Mowbray would do so. As it is both Ribero and Pickering are capable enough defenders but don't offer what Beck did going forwards. I think i'd still pick either of those though over F Off Derek in fact i'd pick Tommy Spur over him.

Being even clearer some lads develop at different speeds and Liverpool might be well stoked through the ranks in his position whereas other positions might suddenly have a vacancy on the conveyor belt.

If he isn't going to agree to sign and earn his corn here then get rid. Giving a kid mins for the sake of it just so he can impress potential suitors to snap him up for a bargain not only might hamper the team if he doesn't hit the standard it also isn't fair on lads who are here for the long run. Can't have unproven kids with a bit of potential dictating the terms at first team level i'm sick of the entitlement of these types.

Probably because he's still just a kid. I remember seeing Conner Bradley in a pre season for Bolton at Chorley and it was obvious he had something, look at him now after earning his stripes at lower level. I expect Beck to follow a similar path.

Derek was an absolute mid table Championship plodder on his very best day whereas Beck has future Prem player stamped all over him.

He always does a bit of PR work for the club in summer don't sweat it.

Think we'll see the no over 30's rule become hard and fast now otherwise no i doubt there'll be any difference because it seems the final say still comes from the same source.

Think we all know at some point it's destined to not end well. Get well again Gazza .

How many other teams Academy players does he make regular column news out of, ones that are so called under bids....

You shot from the hip.

Who does it suit ? Have a good think about this before shooting from the hip.

Good thing about Val is for me he brings something a bit different, a bit like JDT did but a more grounded lower risk style yet brighter than the generic TM/Eustace stuff. Early days in his first full season obviously but the end of last season was encouraging.

It's not really a noteworthy story worth 'reporting' is it.

It's hard to put into words how good Usyk is but for me he stands alone with a prime Ali as technically the best HW's of all time. I'd argue Ali's era was a bit deeper at the top end than this one and he dominated twice two different versions of him but Usyk honed his own skills dominated arguably the best ever cruiser division. Said at the time though Dubois battering AJ showed more about Joshua and where he's at than actually telling us much we didn't already know about DD. The lad can bang and is all raw aggression but there is little else to him and he cannot handle a good punch. Usyk though a great in any era.

Nixon absolutely determined to sell Tyjon for us.

Would've been a bit discouraging if he missed that 🤔

Good solid signing. 2 year contract till he hits the magic over 30's club where his legs will fall off overnight. Now that this is over the line i suggest we watch Hyams situation very closely......

The strong starts are now absolutely vital for this club to prevent us fighting at the wrong end all second half of the season. Forget play offs if we hadn't had such good first halves to the last few years it's almost guaranteed we'd have dropped, promotion doesn't come into it. This is Venky Rovers, we need to be 3rd at Christmas just to make sure we don't go down by May !!!!

Jordan Rhodes - £8 million sold for c£11 million - Consistent reliable top goal scorer. Adam Armstrong - £1.75 rising to £3 million - Sharp young prospect scored goals and developed here - sold for double figures. Brereton - £6/7 million - Prospect took a long time to develop but showed his potential and SHOULD have fetched double figures. Szmodics - £2 million - Good lower league prospect found his feet here and kept us up almost on his own - Sold for 4 or 5 times the fee. Danny Graham - Free transfer, big wages - Reliable strong centre forward played a big part in promotion and res-establishing club. There are more but the point is you DO have to invest good money regularly if you want to resell for big bucks and reap the benefits in between.

Everton are actually scoucers though.

They'll be over the moon covering all this windows outgoings with that one sale but at least it fits the trading model at last.

We need the Championship version of Andy Todd - without the dark side obviously - so this guy sounds just the ticket.

A steady Eddie is just what is needed next to Hyam he plays so much better with a calm presence next to him.