£100k bargain bankrolled Oxford United with £2m Cardiff City sale – Bluebirds & Portsmouth did not see the same star | OneFootball

Gavin Whyte joined Oxford United for £100,000 and was sold for £2 million, but he didn't continue to progress and fulfil his potential.

Back in the summer of 2018, Oxford United brought in an exciting youngster from Crusaders in Northern Ireland, Gavin Whyte - he would go on to make the U’s a hefty profit before failing to adapt at other EFL clubs.

Whyte, who came through the academy at Crusaders, joined Oxford in July 2018 for a small fee believed to be in the region of £100,000.

In Northern Ireland, Whyte had been a key man for a Crusaders side that won three NIFL Premierships in four seasons with instrumental in all of those triumphs, notching 21 goals in their 2017/18 title-winning campaign, prompting Oxford to bring him in for a bargain fee.

In just one season at the Kassam Stadium, he became a fans’ favourite with his excellent technical ability matched with a speed and dynamism that allowed the versatile attacker to flourish.

However, permanent moves to Cardiff City and Portsmouth never saw him return to the exciting potential he showed in Oxfordshire, and he is now back playing his football across the Irish Sea.

Whyte's rapid rise to prominence in the EFL at Oxford United

Whyte joined Oxford and ended up almost immediately becoming a key man for as they, under the management of Karl Robinson, finished in the top-half of League One.

Whyte scored seven goals in League One that year, mainly from out wide, whilst notching nine in 47 matches across all competitions in the 2017/18 campaign.

Robinson, known for his attack-minded style of football, was perhaps the ideal coach for Whyte to adapt to English football, with a front foot and aggressive system allowing Whyte to thrive, operating mainly as a right-winger but occasionally playing on either the left or down the middle.

Perhaps his most notable performance came when he put the Oxford side on his back to score a hat-trick and deliver a 3-2 victory away from home against Shrewsbury Town late on in the season; the timing of which potentially provoking Cardiff to sit up and take notes before shelling out a reasonably big fee on the Belfast-born attacker.

Oxford secured a top-half finish that season, with Whyte a key part of that achievement, and Robinson was keen to heap the praise on him and the business done by Oxford:

"We took a big chance on him in the summer, paid a bit of money for him, and that's certainly probably one of the best deals I've ever made in relation to a football club."

Gavin Whyte's eventual struggles at Cardiff City and Portsmouth

A substantial £2 million move to Cardiff did follow the 2018/19 season, banking Oxford an enormous profit, but he never really ever got going with the Bluebirds.

Having been relegated the previous season, Cardiff were expected to challenge for promotion to the top-flight once again, albeit with the more pragmatic style of Neil Warnock and then Neil Harris.

Whyte was initially given a good run of games to find his feet in South Wales, but the leap up to the second-tier in a team less likely to attack than Robinson's Oxford meant he found it tough and, by the second-half of the campaign, he was out of the side and, often, out of the squad.

Warnock was the man trusting Whyte to start games regularly, with the former Crystal Palace boss famed for allowing attacking players to express themselves in the final third, but perhaps the system and process-driven Robinson was a better fit. Whyte's industry and work-rate out of possession was also valued by Warnock, but his departure from Cardiff early into the season spelled the beginning of the end for his career in the Welsh capital.

As for Harris, it became quite clear quite quickly that he didn't fancy Whyte and he eventually moved on to Hull mid-way through the following season due to a continued lack of game time.

Despite the fact he eventually shipped him out and never really gave him a run of games in the side, Harris appeared to hint at the fact that it wasn't down to Whyte's attitude, and discussed his potential:

"Gavin is a super young player. Do I see his long-term future with us? Yes, of course I do.

"I've made it very clear what I want to see from him and he wants to do it. He's got some real potential. Gavin has got huge energy and a big heart."

With Hull, he showed some promise again under the management of fellow Northern Irishman Grant McCann, with four strikes in 20 League One appearances as the Tigers won the League One title in 2021, but he wasn’t picked up by Hull that summer or any other second-tier club, leaving him going back to Oxford in the third-tier.

Having been released by Cardiff at the end of his contract in the summer of 2023, which was a reluctant acceptance of an extremely underwhelming transfer by the club, Whyte joined Portsmouth on a free transfer.

Whilst with Pompey, Whyte’s versatility helped John Mousinho’s side to win the League One title, his second during his career so far, but he struggled to make much of an effective impact in the final third with his only goal in 33 matches across all competitions coming in the EFL Trophy.

Mousinho had begun to leave Whyte out of the team due to tactical reasons in the second-tier and, a couple of weeks into the 2024/25 Championship season, he eventually left Fratton Park by mutual consent and, after a few months without a club, joined Derry City in the League of Ireland in January.

Internationally, he has represented Northern Ireland on 30 occasions, scoring five goals, and remains well liked by supporters of the Green and White Army.

However, having been a bargain signing for Oxford that eventually netted them a big money fee, in relative terms, it would not have been expected that, at the age of just 28, now 29, he finds himself back playing in Northern Ireland – and it is a transfer by Cardiff that can only be described as disastrous.

It was indeed a bit of a masterstroke by Oxford in the end as they saw the best of Whyte upon a rapid rise, with Cardiff and Portsmouth feeling the brunt of his steady stagnation and decline instead.