Thanks to the wealth of various sporting events presently capturing the headlines – Andy Murray at Wimbledon, the British & Irish Lions imminent decisive Test in Australia, and next week’s first Ashes Test Match – football has been relegated as far down the agenda as it is possible to recall.

One of the week’s major stories in the national game is that of Swansea City’s successful £6m bid for Jonjo Shelvey.  At first consideration it is a relatively low key transfer, just the latest case of a youngster having to move on in an attempt to fulfil his early promise.

In order for Shelvey to be granted the opportunity to renew his career though, the Welsh outfit have been required to part with £6m.  This is the same club which purchased their excellent Dutch goalkeeper Michel Vorm for £1.5m, took the Spanish international attacker Pablo Hernandez from Valencia for £5.5m, paid £2m for the cultured defender Chico Flores, and, most notably, gave Real Vallecano just £2m for the sensational Michu.

Michael Laudrup’s summer business prior to acquiescing to Liverpool’s demands for Shelvey has involved the recruitment of three Spaniards – Alejandro Pozuelo (21 years-old), Jordi Amat (21), and Jose Alberto Canas (26).  All were regular starters in La Liga, and came in at a combined cost of below £3m.

That Shelvey alone will cost more than twice that amount, provides one of the more glaring examples yet of the outrageous premium placed on our home-grown players.

Shelvey sparked a frisson of excitement in the English game when, in April 2008, he broke into Charlton Athletic’s first team at the age of 16 years and 59 days.  A little over two years later, Liverpool paid £1.7m to prize the Londoner to Merseyside.

In his three years at Anfield, the 21 year-old has played 69 times and shown little to indicate that he merits the huge sum Swansea are prepared to chance on his renaissance.

Of chief concern, is that Shelvey was very much at the heart of the England Under 21 side’s awful European Championship campaign in June.  After 75 minutes of the opening match against Italy, in which he failed to make any impression, Shelvey was withdrawn by his manager Stuart Pearce.

With Pearce fast running out of ideas and options, he sent the Liverpool player back into the mix as a substitute – to no effect – against Norway, and left him on the pitch for the full 90 minutes of the third, and last, sorry display against Israel.  Shelvey was not alone in having myriad technical deficiencies in his game exposed by the bright Israelis, but he became one of the poster boys for his country’s widely castigated performance.

There have been flickers of promise during Shelvey’s three years at Anfield.  Ironically, one such hint at a dormant talent that lies within came during a loan spell away at Blackpool late in 2011 which included an impudent hat-trick scored at Elland Road against Leeds United.

In a red shirt, there was a clever performance last December when asked to play in the avant garde ‘False 9’ position away at West Ham United – a match in which Shelvey hit the winning goal.  That scarce demonstration of on-field intelligence was preceded three months earlier by the evidencing of a combative character.

After Shelvey was sent-off for a reckless challenge on Jonny Evans – a tackle whose execution was in stark contrast to his aforementioned intelligence – during a high-octane clash against Manchester United, he became embroiled in a row with Sir Alex Ferguson.  Shelvey believed that, the Scot had been typically pro-active in letting the day’s referee, Mark Halsey, know that he felt the indiscretion to be worthy of a red card.  The confrontation was unseemly, but evidenced a spiky facet to his persona nonetheless.

Those are the few occasions on which Shelvey has crossed English football’s radar during three mainly stagnant years.  It is a limited contribution that is sure to convince Liverpool that their £6m return on the player makes for a wonderful piece of business.

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