Football: Missing...

Martin Phillips

(Manchester City)

The former City manager Alan Ball bragged that he had unearthed "potentially Britain's first pounds 10m player" when he paid pounds 350,000 for Phillips a little over two years ago. Sadly, the 21-year-old former Exeter winger has not made quite such an impression on the current Maine Road chief, Frank Clark, who has yet to give him a first team game. Indeed he has not started a senior match since the opening day of last season. "It hasn't really worked out for Martin here," Clark recently admitted. Phillips is now for sale, probably for slightly less than Ball's valuation.