Top Premier League clubs don’t often send loanees to L1 or L2 clubs, although the second rank clubs like Southampton often do. To be fair, Middlesbrough’s Academy has as good a reputation as many of these... and the loanees we had from Newcastle and Villa over the past few years have been no better than Stephen Walker.

If I had the choice between another loanee and keeping Pixie until the summer I’d take the latter, although that seems to be less likely.