Two years ago Kamari Doyle seemed to be on the verge of a breakthrough at Southampton Football Club, but he felt that moving to Brighton to stay in the Premier League might be better than at St Mary's in the Championship.

With Saints already relegated Kamari Doyle was despite still only being 17, bypassing the U18 team and a regular in the U21 side in the Premier League 2, starting 13 games in the second half of the season.

This lead to a place on the bench for the trip to the Amex Stadium in the final weeks of the season and he came off the bench to get 6 minutes under his belt, he was also on the bench for the last game of the season a week later against Liverpool, but this time had to be content with just watching.

But he had showed promise and Southampton supporters wondered whether he might well be a surprise package the following season under Russell Martin.

Just a week after his 18th birthday in August 2023, he was again in 1st team action, coming off the bench at half time in what was a car crash defeat in the Caraboa Cup at Gillingham, Russell Martin seemingly hanging out a few players to dry in this one.

But he was again on the bench for a couple of the Championship fixtures later that month and although he was then back in the U21 squad and playing games, it seemed that he was not happy with his lot at St Mary's turning down an extension to his contract at St Mary's and in the January of 2024 he decided he wanted to move to Brighton. Saints received a reported £1 million as an initial transfer fee plus add ons.

In essence his lot had not improved, he was still playing in the Premier League 2 as he did at St Mary's, but he seemingly though Brighton would offer a better chance of first team football.

But as he turned 19, his hopes of that seemed to diminish and he was shipped out to Exeter City on a season long loan.

Initially he did well at St James Park, but as the season progressed he found himself on the bench more than he was in the starting line up and that led to Brighton recalling him last month, as they felt he was not getting enough game time.

But he wasn't back at the Amex long, he was soon sent out on loan again, this time to local rivals Crawley Town, also in League One, so far the results have been mixed, he was initially a sub in his first 2 League One games and his debut in the starting line up saw him hauled off after 63 minutes.

Since then things have got better, a goal after coming off the bench against Stevenage saw him restored to the starting line up for the two games that have been played after, although again he was taken off in both, albeit in the last 10 minutes this time.

So has Kamari found the grass greener at Brighton than Southampton ? The answer is not so far !

The full details of his transfer to the Seagulls were not disclosed and it is unclear how long that he has left on his contract.

When he arrived all the talk was of him breaking into the Brighton first team, but he is nowhere near that at the moment and he might now be thinking that he might well have made a mistake in leaving.

He will look at his former team mate Tyler Dibling and perhaps think that could have been him, had he stayed at Southampton and battled for a place in the first team.

His future at Brighton is now far from certain and it seems the rough and tumble of League One doesn't suit him as much as the Premier League might have.

All Photos Via Reuters

DellBoyWally added 11:50 - Feb 20 He is still very raw, but he looks to have all the attributes needed to thrive as a false 10 in Fabian Hürzeler's system .So, Doyle has a lot of work to do to fight his way into the team. But if he gets the right number of minutes with Crawley and impresses in pre-season, he may just get that chance to showcase his talent in the Premier League. Without a doubt, he is a name you need to remember. So according to B&HAFC VAVEL.com they look upon him very highly!!

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mj887 added 12:59 - Feb 20 Let's face it, he moved for one reason.... money, it was never really about getting minutes in the first team
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Colburn added 07:28 - Feb 21 Don’t really care as these types of players tend to have a bad attitude. Brighton clearly rate him so highly they sent him to a worse team than we sent Ballard to, twice. He’s obviously not that good
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underweststand added 12:24 - Feb 21 It is a common problem to see youngsters who may have been at a club since junior school age get to advance to U21 level (even if they are still U18's on paper) and begin to yearn for a chance of game time in the first eleven, when they see others " making it " In a world where even players in their pre-teens have already got agents, the urge to make a move elsewhere becomes more important than it is. We've seen this before, and indeed Tyler Dibling had his disappointments after the move to Chelsea and found that the grass isn't always greener "elsewhere" . A similar situation occured with J.J. Morgan, who made his move to Chelsea but is still wallowing around in the enormous pond with other amongst Chelsea's U21 recruits. Big Money moves may seem like a win-win for both player and club(s) concerned, but the player may come down to Earth with a bump , when playing alongside big name / International players. Historically, The likes of Walcott, Bale and Shaw all had nightmare introductions to the " big time " and took time to adjust.

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Flamingbankers added 11:45 - Feb 22 Keep saying it, but reduce the number of match day squad and substitutes and re-introduced a reserve league thus helping players reach a step closer to first team football; injured or unfit, or out of favour, players recuperate or readjust. If they can't perform at that level, it's clearer that they're not going to perform at first team level. Excessive money of course means logic, common sense or fairness are ignored and not often applied. Anything to help the smaller clubs is dismissed. A big reason that Saints could compete in the 70's, 80's was having a reserve team to bring the players like Mills, Holmes, Williams, Waldron, Shearer, Dodd, Moran, the Wallace brothers and Le Tissier through. Those were the days!

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