Seasiders on Rand Alert?

One of the biggest English prospects to come out of the Emirates Stadium for a number of years has sent a message out to Championship clubs to come and get him – and The Seasiders could be amongst the contenders for his signature.

Mark Randall, who has played in the Champions League for The Gunners this campaign, has stated that he is ready to leave Arsene Wenger’s team in order to kickstart his career.

It was widely speculated that Tony Parkes had secured a loan deal for the 19-year-old on deadline day Thursday, but needed a couple of our squad players to move on as well to fund a deal. Sadly that wasn’t to be, with the ‘Pool players preferring to fight for their place at Bloomfield Road, and Randall stayed in London.

But the former Burnley loanee is now ready for a permanent move, and given that he had allegedly agreed to join, a transfer could be forthcoming.

And I need only to cite the example of Steve Sidwell; the now Aston Villa man secured a move to Reading (in a similar position to ourselves at the time) straight out of Arsenal’s reserves in 2003 when he was Randall’s age, and never looked back – obviously going onto play for Chelsea and now Villa.

If we tried to finalise a deal for the talented playmaker now, instead of waiting until August, we could send a signal of intent out that BFC finally mean business in this league.