It’s Deivid Washington’s birthday today, which provides a good excuse to think about… Deivid Washington. Which isn’t something we do all too often at the moment.
The now 19 year old arrived last summer, and even then was rather lost in the shuffle of much bigger names and bigger fees flying around. His relatively modest €20m cost was peanuts compared to what we were at that moment trying to stuff into Brighton’s pockets for Moises Caicedo, for example.
But that €20m is still a significant amount, and when you combine it with similar fees spent on Angelo Gabriel and other raw South American talents, it adds up to a lot. At least Gabriel seems to have a pathway to success – he enjoyed a decent loan at Strasbourg and will probably return there for next season.
A very uncertain future for a player with no clear pathway
Washington, after a season in our Development Squad, looks a lot less certain. He scored at a good rate in the PL2, but not enough to earn a chance in our first team next season, and not enough to really generate a clamour from teams desperate to take him on loan next season.
His value on Transfermarkt is now down to €9m. Does he really strike you as ready to go out on loan and make an impact somewhere? There’s still a real air of timidity about him when we watch. He looks like the Championship would eat him alive, and we don’t really want to use one of our precious foreign loan slots on him when there are so many higher value first team stars to farm out.
We hope Deivid has a happy birthday – because his future feels a little cloudy right now.
