Thought he had a very decent game in a beaten team tonight against Tottenham. Not a perfect performance by any means but he didn't look out of place at that level, whereas his centre back partner Souttar had a bit of a mare and really seemed to struggle with the step up in standard.
You can see why Collins is so highly rated though, physically strong for his age but can also pass the ball as well. I think he'll be in the Ireland senior squad before too long.
Meaningless in the short term, but Darren Fletcher has just joined the coaching staff at Manchester United. He was reportedly a big fan of Collins from his time at Stoke and was the link when Collins was linked to United previously. I obviously don't expect United to go straight out and try to buy Collins or anything but interesting that he has ended up back there all the same. It would not be beyond Collins' ability to progress to that level at some point in the future.
Fletcher has been back at United for a while coaching the u16s, just been promoted to first team coach.
Indeed, I just thought it was worth a mention given Fletcher's previous high rating of Collins which lead to the United transfer speculation at the time.
And yes, it was Collins that Stanislas broke away from to score at the weekend. But that will happen to every defender at some stage or other, especially in a team that are playing as high a line as Stoke were in that instance. In the part of the game that I watched he was otherwise excellent - tackling, passing etc. And made an exceptional recovery tackle near the end of the game that is well worth looking up.
I really think he's a massive talent.
Collins linked with a £10m move to Burnley tonight. Arsenal also reportedly interested.
£10 million? That would put him in the bracket of the top-10 most expensive Ireland players of all time, wouldn't it?
Hopefully he wouldn't end up another Ben Gibson, a highly-rated £15m championship centre-half signing who ended up hardly getting a sniff under Dyche!
I honestly think Liverpool could do worse than look at him based on what I saw tonight. Obviously wouldn't be a regular starter at 19, but he's better than the likes of Rhys Williams I think.
In terms of regular game time Burnley is a better bet obviously, would probably be behind Tarkowski this season but he'll be leaving in the summer and Collins at 20 would be well placed to step in then.
Interesting piece about the Nathan Collins transfer interest from 17 to 22 minutes on this podcast.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0946ykf
https://oatcakefanzine.proboards.com...out-on-collins
This thread is also very interesting. Many reckon 10m would be too low. Some reckon the club should take it, or maybe even 15m. There seems to be a consensus, either way, that he will be worth more in a few years and has a huge future. I think much of the debate surrounds their more immediate needs for the money.
Reports of a £4.5m bid turned down. Would have said that was a fairly derisory offer to be honest.
It's almost a cliche at this stage but honestly if he was English or Welsh the offers would be closer to £20m.
£4.5m is an insult.
Would a move to Burnley really be much of a step up from Stoke. Stoke could be in Premiership next season with Burnley in Championship, its unlikely but very possible. He'd also be going to a position where Burnleys 2 best players are their center halfs.
I would much rather he stay with Stoke until a bigger club come in for him.
He’ll be fine either way. He’s in a good place at Stoke getting plenty of time and with his raw ingredients the Premier League will be calling soon regardless of whether it’s Burnley or someone else.
The advantage with Burnley is that I believe there’s an obvious path to the starting lineup if Tarkowski moves on. They don’t have the budget to spend 10 mil+ and leave him on the bench (I know it’s happened before quite literally with that club but the bottom line is I believe he would be given a real chance). The guy is a freak physically and is quite technically good for a guy his size. Excited to see how high his ceiling is.
Or imagine if Arsenal got him for £10m. What would that say about their £27m signing of William Saliba?
I definitely think that the dearth of quality Irish players in the top half of the Premiership has served to reduce the value of our emerging players. The dearth of Irish players at top half clubs over the last 5 years or so is stark. Hopefully, however, clubs are seeing Knight and Collins and noticing there's a trend beginning.
It's interesting also to note how good Collins and Knight are and that they signed with Stoke and Derby, when surely they had interest from top half Premiership academies. Collins, particularly, has an uncle who is an agent and and his father's first club in England was Liverpool. I assume that Stoke were specifically selected by the Collins family and much homework went into it because I don't think there's a huge track record of them having produced many players there and I remember them being quite far behind the rest of the Premiership in terms of academy and reserve sided when they were initially promoted all those years ago.
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