Brighton & Hove Albion may still harbour designs on Bristol City’s most talented youngster but a product from the Seagulls academy is set to make the trip in the opposite direction as Haydon Roberts closes in on a free transfer to Ashton Gate.
The 21-year-old is understood to have visited the High Performance Centre on Monday to meet with Nigel Pearson and a deal could well be wrapped up this week with Rob Dickie signed and Ross McCrorie set to follow.
Roberts has already experienced two seasons of senior League One football having been loaned out to Rochdale for the 2020/21 campaign and then Derby County in 2022/23 where he made 46 appearances in all competitions.
On the one hand, City would be signing a prospect with significant room for improvement and a ceiling which is potentially unknown at this stage, so Roberts will need a degree of time. But he’s also secured enough first-team experience to be an immediate first-team option for Pearson, providing his manages the step-up in quality.
To learn a bit more about Roberts, we spoke to Derbyshire Live’s Derby County correspondent Leigh Curtis who watched the 21-year-old in close quarters last season…
For those unaware of Haydon Roberts, how would you describe him as a player?
He’s very versatile. Very aggressive and good on the ball. At Derby, it’s quite difficult to analyse him in a way because he played as a left wing-back which I don’t think is his best position, truth be told, I actually like him as a left-sided centre-half. He played there towards the back end of the season.
The trouble with Derby is they didn’t have any specialist wing-backs all season so they ended up playing midfielders there. When they brought Roberts to the club, he was described as a centre-half but, in the end, because they didn’t have any full-backs available, they played him out there.
And he did a good job. If you play him out there he isn’t going to be a marauding, skillful, wing-back. His ability in the final third could be improved and certainly his distribution from wide areas in terms of his crossing isn’t as sharp as it could be.
But when he moved to left-sided centre-half he was so good, the way he moved with the ball into midfield - he’s a decent ball carrier without being overly exuberant and he reads the game every so well for someone of that age.
Ultimately, he did really well at Derby. The fans loved him. He’s got a lovely left-foot and scored a brilliant goal against Shrewsbury, and scored against MK Dons with a header.
If I just compare him to other wing-backs in the game and the demands that are placed on them, they’re expected to be like wingers, it’s an area of his game that he can improve on.
What stood out in terms of his best attributes?
He’s very competent defensively. As you’d expect from someone who’s had a good Premier League upbringing, he’s very switched on in that respect and I can’t remember too many wingers ever getting the better of him. He’s good in the air, not the tallest but he’s got a good spring on him. Defensively, I’d have no concerns about him.
He obviously learned his trade as a centre-half, whether a move to wing-back might be natural at this stage of his career, that may well be the case but there will need to be a fair bit of work with him on that front.
He’s athletic with fairly decent pace but his skillset right now means that centre-back might be his best position, but it depends what Bristol City want to do with him. He would more than be able to do a job out there but having seen him play centre-half, in the short time he did there for Derby, I remember thinking, ‘wow, he’s really good there’.
So the inevitable question would be, why didn’t he play more at centre-back for Derby?
Derby played four at the back under Paul Warne for large periods. When they went on a 19-game unbeaten run it was a flat back four with Roberts or Louie Sibley at left-back, Eiran Cashin and Craig Forsyth in the middle and then Jason Knight or Korey Smith at right-back.
There was really no need to change it, then Derby hit a bit of a sticky patch but what stopped Paul from going 3-5-2 earlier was he didn’t have a lot of authentic wing-backs and was playing either Tom Barkhuizen or Nathaniel Mendez-Laing out there. When it become clear that wingers aren’t the best defensively, he then went back to Knight or Smith on the right and on the left tended to be Roberts.
And then towards the back end of the season they got a couple of injuries and he ended up playing as a left-sided centre-back against MK Dons. He was really good in that game, even from centre-back he was carrying the fight, stepping into midfield and trying to create openings.
But it was a combination of factors, overall, over the course of the season - both in terms of form, selection and a dearth of specialists in other positions - but I really liked him there and he was excellent.
I guess, it goes without saying that Paul Warne wanted to keep him?
I can’t remember which game it was but I asked him if he was a player he’d like to sign and he said something along the lines of, ‘he ticks all my boxes’. As good a season as Derby had, they were a team that lacked athleticism in key areas of the pitch and Roberts provided that in spades, so Paul was dead keen.
I think his performances for Derby have put him in the shop window. I think he’ll go on to become a really good player. He’s only 21, and if you think by the time he’s reached his peak, I think he’s got all the attributes to go on and become a really top player. I really do.
Is there anything else in terms of where he needs to improve?
He’s going to find the standards of attackers in the Championship a lot higher than what he would have found in League One. That’s only natural. I can’t think of many decent right wingers who gave him much of a problem but the gap between divisions is massive. The gap from League Two to League One isn’t so big but when you make the leap from League One to the Championship and from there to the Premier League, the levels just get wider and wider.
I think there are still elements of his game that need to improve and if he plays wing-back, he’ll find the quality of wide players a lot more difficult but with somebody like Nigel Pearson, who was a centre-half by trade, there’s a lot he can learn from him.
I would have loved Derby to have brought him back, and I think the fans would have too, because he was hugely popular but it’s one of those things where he’s put himself in the shop window and opened himself up to everybody.
Do you have any insight into his character and what he’s like as a person?
He was very popular inside the dressing room. I never got to speak to him in a media capacity. But I remember he came into the press room once and I had a brief chat with him and he was a really nice kid, very humble and looks like a bit of a dream for a manager and I think Paul would agree to this. He wants to learn and wants to be the best version of himself.
Whereas some young players have loan moves and it doesn’t look like it really bothers them because they know they’re going to go back to their parent club, Haydon fully invested himself in Derby County. It’s a small detail but he conducted an interview with Rams TV and he used the word “we” rather than Derby.
He didn’t see himself as a loan player, he saw himself as a Derby County player, which I thought was good of him. With everything that was going on at the club, he seemed to really enjoy himself, handled himself impeccably on and off the pitch. He’s very grounded.
Paul Warne’s a canny fella, he knows the players that might cause him problems and I think he loved Haydon.
Although, I have to say, he does love his socks rolled low. He has the tiniest shin-pads as well, and playing as a centre-half that would give me kittens!
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