Exeter City must have Ethan Ampadu, Jay Stansfield fear as new saga plays out | OneFootball

Jake Richards is still yet to put pen to paper on a professional contract at Exeter City and it has the feel of Jay Stansfield and Ethan Ampadu.

Deep down all Exeter City fans know that Jake Richards isn't going to hang around for long.

Whether the 17-year-old midfielder signs a pro contract or not, it certainly looks like he's going to be too good to spend the rest of his career at his boyhood club.

The prodigious midfielder made his City debut on his 16th birthday and has been the only player that manager Gary Caldwell has shown any faith in from the current crop of youngsters and even those a couple of years older as well.

But even his regular involvement with the first-team squad hasn't convinced him that he should sign a professional contract with the Grecians. Not yet, anyway.

He became eligible to do so on his 17th birthday, but the fact that we've heard nothing, other than City have repeatedly improved their offers for him, probably tells us that he's looking to move to pastures new in the summer when his two-year scholarship expires.

It's a familiar tale at St James Park and it's a path that's been trodden by players who have gone on to achieve great things but have also left too soon for the fans' liking.

Exeter's famous academy products

Ollie Watkins is the club's most successful academy graduate of the modern era but Ethan Ampadu was poached by Chelsea and Jay Stansfield went on to be the subject of a mega-money move from Fulham to Birmingham City after the Cottagers prised him away from his scholarship at St James Park.

Watkins was the only one of that trio who signed a pro deal and was more of a late developer, but he's gone on to earn the club millions of pounds and he's represented England on various occasions as well as currently playing in the top flight and Champions League with Aston Villa.

Ampadu's career, predictably, never worked out at Chelsea who seemingly took him because they knew he was available through tribunal for a fee that would be well below his true value and that they could make money farming him out on loan before eventually flogging him on.

He's now at Leeds United and is their captain, no mean feat for a young man at a big club who's still only 24, though we saw his leadership skills as a school boy at St James Park when he was dishing out instructions to seasoned pros twice his age.

Stansfield was poached by Fulham for peanuts in 2019 before signing pro, but he may have been partly motivated by the desire to move out of his late father Adam's shadow a little and forge his own path.

Both Ampadu and Stansfield have ended up earning the Grecians plenty of vital cash through sell ons with Stanno Jnr fetching at least £15m last summer.

There's no doubt Richards will do similar if he is to leave, though there's always a risk of stagnation with young players who go and sit in academies rather than choosing to play proper, competitive men's football.

All Exeter fans want Richards to stay

That said, his Exeter minutes have dried up of late and he's barely been seen nor heard since his half-time withdrawal at Charlton Athletic on February 22nd.

He's not featured in a single first team match-day squad since so he may have been injured, but he did feature in the Premier League Cup clash with Brentford B on March 13th and there is a chance that he's told the club he's leaving and Caldwell has decided to use players who are going to stick around.

He haven't heard anything either way, so this is all pure speculation, but rumours have been floating about on social media that Tottenham Hotspur and Fulham have made offers to Richards.

It would be great for everyone in Devon's capital if Richards was to sign a decent-length professional contract with the club he's supported all his life, but that's not the way the game works as Stansfield will attest.

Money talks and the lure of the Premier League will surely be impossible to resist, but all City fans would love to see Richards continue to develop and strut his stuff in front of the Big Bank plenty more times before making his big move.