Heard he played well in their last match. Hadn't really heard much about him before but he sounds like he could be pretty decent. 1 million would be a bargain in that case. I expect a few of us will follow Derby a little more closely and there'll be the odd scout visit.

Red and Blue Army!

missed a good chance but provided an assist yesterday in Derby's win - main positive, other than gaining a lot of experience, is that his signing has annoyed Rooney

In truth, it's very hard to know if Plange will develop into a PL scorer. What is unquestionable, though, is that buying up promising Championship or League forwards for paltry fees is a brilliant strategy. If you can bring in ten of them for ten million pounds (a million each) only one of them has to hit and you're laughing. To me, that makes far more sense than bringing in Chris Wood for £23 million. In that context, would you rather have 23 Luke Plange's or one Chris Wood? My guess is that you're more likely to find someone capable of scoring 15 goals a season among your 23 than you are getting that out of Chris Wood. One of those 23 might turn out to be Jamie Vardy. Chris Wood, on the other hand, will never be Jamie Vardy. At best, he'll always be Chris Wood.

Edited by sydtheeagle (13 Mar 2022 10.54am)

Sydenham by birth. Selhurst by the Grace of God.

With respect, Chris Wood is not that bad !
He has scored 12,14 and 13 goals in the last 3 seasons for a Burnley team that have hardly hit the heights in those seasons.

Edited by Willo (13 Mar 2022 11.00am)

Congratulation Luke on your U20 callup.

[Link]

I wouldn't exactly say he's setting the world alight but he's doing pretty well. He looks like he'll be good enough for our squad, at the very least. A good buy.

Red and Blue Army!

No big reason for asking but wondering now that now Derby's season is well and truly ended is Luke spending the last few weeks at Palace getting to know a few of the players / staff and so on?

Would be a nice positive environment to come into after the difficulties at Derby and set him up for pre-season

Today Paper talk is suggesting he will go out on Loan next season and that Coventry are interested in taken him?

There seems little point in him coming to Palace to join the U/23 team. A Championship move would make total sense and give him another years experience.

We could then look watch his development and see if he really is premiership material. He did only cost us £1m…so no risk of being out of pocket.

Or…take him on the tour of Asia and see what he is like.

PV acknowledged that it would probably have been better had we sent out Rak-Sakyi on loan for the second half of the season.

These better youngsters need regular game time playing men's (not boys' football.

Plange is unlikely to get minutes ahead of Mateta or Edouard next season, so little point in him being benched or put in the U23s. Far better for him to go to a Championship team that want him on loan and it seems Coventry want him, which suggests they've seen enough of him to think he can be of use to them (he played the second half against them back in March). Sending him out on loan to Coventry or other decent Championship team seems eminently sensible to me.

A matter of opinions, of course.