Right. Here we go again.

Arsenal and Real Madrid are reportedly circling Bayer Leverkusen striker Christian Kofane like two seagulls fighting over the last chip on Brighton seafront. The lad's 19. Nineteen. He's barely had time to find his favourite seat on the team bus and two of the biggest clubs on the planet are already trying to rip him out of the one place where he's actually developing.

That's the problem with modern football.

In my day, a young striker had to earn his stripes. You'd play 150 games in the lower leagues. You'd get clattered by a centre half called Big Kev on a Tuesday night in Hartlepool. You'd learn what it meant to graft. And then, maybe, MAYBE, a bigger club would come calling. After you'd proven something. After you'd been through a bit of adversity. After you'd played on a pitch that was more potato field than football ground.

Now? A kid has half a decent season in the Bundesliga and suddenly there's a bidding war that could fund the NHS for a week.

Don't get me started on the fees they'll be talking about. We don't know the exact numbers yet, but we all know how this works. Leverkusen will slap a price tag on him that would make your eyes water. Arsenal will haggle. Madrid will swan in with their usual "we are Real Madrid, the boy dreams of playing here" routine. And somewhere in the middle of all this, a 19 year old kid is supposed to keep his head straight and focus on playing actual football.

Good luck with that, son.

Look, I'm not saying the boy isn't talented. He clearly is. Leverkusen don't just hand out starting spots for fun. Xabi Alonso has built something genuinely impressive over there and part of the reason it works is because he develops players properly. Gives them time. Lets them make mistakes. Doesn't throw them into the deep end with a £70 million price tag stapled to their forehead.

But that's exactly what Arsenal or Madrid will do. They'll buy him, announce it with a slick video set to dramatic music, give him the number nine shirt, and then wonder why he's struggling six months later when he's got 60,000 people expecting him to be the next Thierry Henry or Ronaldo every single Saturday.

I've seen it a hundred times. Clubs hoover up every promising young forward on the continent and half of them end up on loan at some middling Serie A side within two years, wondering where it all went wrong.

Arsenal are the worst for it at the moment. They've spent more money than I've had hot dinners and they still can't win the league. So naturally the solution is to spend more money. On a teenager. From a league where the defending is optional and the pitches look like bowling greens. That'll fix everything.

And Madrid. Don't even. They collect young forwards like my grandkids collect Pokemon cards. They've got about fourteen of them now. At some point you've got to actually play them or let someone else have a go.

The best thing for Christian Kofane, and I mean this sincerely, is to stay exactly where he is for at least another two seasons. Learn from Alonso. Play in big European games with Leverkusen. Get stronger. Get smarter. Then move when he's ready, not when some agent fancies a new yacht.

But nobody listens to me. Nobody ever listens to me.

In my day, we called this common sense. Now they call it a "conservative transfer strategy" and sack you for it.

I need a cup of tea.