Makes me think the contract he signed at 17 was a 1 year deal. We then went to extend it and he wasn’t interested and made that very clear, thus us not playing him and him effectively being released by the club when that contract expired around his 18 birthday.
We'll never know, but I don't think I've EVER heard of a club offering a player who they take on as a scholar, a deal that includes a professional contract that is only two years in total (ie one-year scholar plus one-year pro). A three-year deal is pretty common (either one-year scholar plus two-year pro or two-year scholarship plus one pro year). Given how highly rated he was, I just don't think they would have offered him such a short pro deal.
We would be due training compensation anyway, but the fact that he was no longer registered as an Albion player as of the end of the January 2022 transfer window, and he didn't sign with United until March 2022, has me wondering if United even needed to agree a deal with us or whether he was a free agent and could agree a contract with anyone.
The other point here is that contracts run until June 30 (apart from short-term contracts offered to players, often youngsters, who are essentially trying to prove their worth). That is another interesting aspect of this situation - why was he no longer registered as an Albion player as of January 2022? Was that a mutual decision between the player and club (difficult to imagine given his footballing pedigree and Albion's model) or did one party - Collyer? - seek a termination?
I see what you are saying but if it was only a years contract signed around the time that he turned 17 then it would have expired before the normal end of June date.
In recent years the Albion have very rarely publicised that 1st-year scholars have signed their first professional contracts. Joe Belmont, Zane Albarus, Evan Ferguson, Casper Nilsson, Marcus Ifill, Todd Miller, Antef Tsoungui - ALL of them signed pro during their first scholar year and the Albion didn't publicise a single one of them. (They did announce that Jacob Vickers had signed pro in July of this year but even that wasn't DURING his 1st scholar year, as such).