Peterborough United, Hull City saga robbed Exeter City of vital funds | OneFootball

Exeter City don't get many player sales wrong but the case of Randell Williams left the club out of pocket.

It’s not that often that Exeter City come out on the wrong end of it in the transfer market.

The Grecians have a great track record in developing homegrown players or picking up cast-offs from higher up the pyramid, polishing them up and selling them on at a nice price.

In terms of homegrown talent, Ollie Watkins, Ethan Ampadu, Jay Stansfield, Matt Grimes have been sold on in deals that have eventually yielded seven-figure sums.

There has also been the likes of Sam Nombe, Jayden Stockley and David Wheeler, who have joined as young players and gone on to bigger things via a nice transfer fee.

Usually the club sell at the right time and make a pretty penny from the upwardly-mobile young players, but Randell Williams was the exception.

The winger, now 27, joined the Grecians on a free transfer from Watford in the summer of 2019 on a two-year deal and was an instant hit.

He scored in the 4-0 demolition derby against Plymouth Argyle in his first few months at the club and would go on to score another four and make 14 assists on the way to being crowned City’s Player Of the Season in the 2019/20 campaign, which was curtailed by Covid.

Williams was in the middle of transfer battle

The following summer, Williams was in demand, with Peterborough United and Hull City said to be interested.

City revealed that they had accepted an offer from a League One side for the wide man, reported as being the Posh, but that he had rejected the move, with then manager Matt Taylor saying via DevonLive: "One League One club met our asking price for Randell, but he turned it down, simply because he didn’t feel it was the right opportunity."

The word on the street was that he wanted to move to The Championship, but it was unusual for anyone to turn down a move away from a League Two club, especially to go to a team like Peterborough who are well known for taking players to the next level.

While it was good to keep Williams, it was a blow to miss out on what Taylor later described as a 'decent amount of money' for Exeter as well.

Exeter didn't strictly have to sell, with the money flowing in from sell-on funds after Watkins' move to Aston Villa from Brentford, but, with that in mind, Peterborough's offer must have been pretty good for it to be accepted with the club in good financial health.

The former Tottenham youth player stayed in Devon’s capital but, with his contract now entering its final six months, City seemed keen to sell him in January to bolster the coffers and make the most of an in-demand player who would soon walk for free.

The footballing Gods had other ideas and Williams picked up a stress fracture over the winter that ended hopes of a January sale.

"Realistically we know more than likely we might lose him at the end of this season," Taylor told BBC Sport.

"But at least if he gets fit again towards February time we know we might have him for a certain amount of games."

Hull eventually won Williams transfer saga

Williams would go on to make 31 appearances in all competitions in his final season at the club, but with a diminished return of four goals and two assists as City lost in the League Two play-off final.

In the end, he got his move to the Championship, and it was Hull who picked him up on a free transfer and were, ultimately, the big winners out of the saga.

Peterborough missed out on a hot prospect who probably would have been better off spending a year or two in the third tier, while City missed out on money and Williams' head was clearly elsewhere during the 2020/21 season.

While Hull were the winners of the deal, the move for Williams didn't really work out, and he made just 22 appearances across two years, scoring no goals and registering zero assists.

He's now at Bolton Wanderers and looks to be finding his feet with a decent 2023/24 season under his belt.

He's at League One level and, ironically, if he had joined Peterborough in the summer of 2020 he would have been part of the squad who got promoted into the second tier via a second-placed finish that season.

You can't knock his ambition, but you have to wonder how things would have worked out for the winger if he had opted for the Posh over the Tigers.