Crystal Palace fans have taken to Twitter to react after The Scottish Sun revealed that Celtic prospect Michael Sparkes has been invited down to south London for a trial with the Premier League side.
Sparkes – who is just 17 years of age – signed his first professional contract with the Bhoys back in June 2018 upon turning 16, and has featured regularly for the Celtic U17 and U18 teams.
The teenager has also made eight appearances for Scotland U16’s, scoring two goals, but decided to switch allegiance to Wales – he has since made two appearances for The Dragons U17’s, scoring once.
He will now get the opportunity to impress Roy Hodgson in SE25 after the Eagles invited him for a trial.
It appears that Crystal Palace’s Sporting Director Dougie Freedman – a Scottish native – has been scouring his homeland for exciting talent, as the south Londoners have also been linked with another player honing his talents in Scotland while signing another in 18-year-old Scott Banks.
Hearts left-back Aaron Hickey has been linked with the Eagles, with Palace set to outbid Celtic for the teenager’s signature.
Aside from that, however, let’s see how the Palace fans on Twitter reacted to the Sparkes news…
To begin the discussion, this supporter didn’t sound too pleased with the news.
Liam said “we really need to reevaluate our priorities” in what seemed like a dig at the club – there’s nothing wrong with investing time in young prospects.
Elsewhere, these three fans all referred to Freedman when also picking up on the fact that the Sporting Director is doing a lot of scouting in Scotland, as we previously alluded to.
Sam said that “Dougie loves scouting in Scotland” before saying that it’s “weird” whereas Tom asked “does Dougie Greedman know there’s other places than Scotland?”
Also, @MTEDx said “shock” after learning of Palace’s interest in another Scottish player.
Meanwhile, Jon lambasted some of the other negative replies to this news, before saying that it’s “good to see we are looking at young talent” – at last, some positivity!
Lastly, Nick decided to be a comedian and said that Sparkes is “just the player to light the place up” – not bad.
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In other news, Dominic Fifield has given an update on Crystal Palace’s pursuit of Yannick Carrasco…