Peter Houston is "gutted" Conor McGrandles is set to leave Falkirk in a £1m move to Norwich City but has confessed he is thrilled the teenager has earned a shot at the big time.
The 18-year-old missed Tuesday night's penalty-kicks win over Cowdenbeath in the League Cup after being granted permission to hold talks with the English Championship outfit.
McGrandles made his debut nearly two years ago, just five days after his 17th birthday, and the athletic midfielder has gone on to make 72 first-team appearances. It is on the recommendation of former manager Gary Holt, who left Westfield in the summer to return to old club Norwich as assistant to Neil Adams, that has encouraged the East Anglia club to target the youngster.
Houston said: "Norwich City have been given permission to speak to Conor with regards to having made an offer, which suggests to me that both clubs are round about there. When teams from England come calling they obviously have money to put on the table and it's money which this club probably has to use to survive.
"It's very disappointing from a manager's point of view. I will be disappointed to lose him, if indeed it goes through. But, in the same breath, I am delighted for the boy, who has come through the academy as a 12, 13, 14-year-old."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article