Manchester City have today announced the signing of Fulham's attacking wonderkid, Patrick Roberts.
The 18-year-old teenager, who has been highly tipped for success, has made the surprising move from west London to Manchester after talks were ongoing over the past few days.
Highly-rated youngster joins City
Rumours were rampant over the talented youngster's future, with his contract only having a year left to run. The Cottagers were eager to cash in on him when they could, especially as they knew plenty of Premier League clubs were interested in his services.
Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool were all linked with respective approaches for the Englishman - who has scored 14 goals at youth international level between U16 and U19 level, the latter age group to which he is currently representing the Three Lions.
Coincidentally, he made his Premier League debut at the Ethiad in the 2013-14 campaign as a tender 17-year-old in a cameo appearance. Since then, Fulham have been eager not to burn him out, which has been frustrating for both fans and the player himself as he's just desperate for regular first-team minutes.
Lack of first-team minutes a precaution
At the current stage of the game, he was struggling to make an impact on the senior side with the club. Not because he's not good enough, but because they'd prefer to reserve him for youth team fixtures as opposed to the risk of exposing him to tough matches against robust Sky Bet Championship sides too early on in his development.
You can understand why Kit Symons and the Fulham coaching staff had been eager not to expose him so quickly, but Roberts is simply too good to be playing regularly in the youth-team games.
It is believed that Patrick will start his City career off in the Elite Development System, before trying to work his way up to the top into Manuel Pellegrini's first-team plans in the not-too-distant future. He becomes the club's third signing in the space of five days after Liverpool winger Raheem Sterling and Aston Villa captain Fabian Delph both signed respective deals with the sky Blues.