catcherintherye
Player Valuation: £80m
I can understand the frustration in some quarters at signing players from the lower leagues or more unfashionable clubs. I think we would all rather see us signing well known Marquee names. The blunt truth is that we tried that in the summer, with Witsel, Mata & Koulibaly and though we got close to all 3 we delivered nobody. By the end of the window it descended into pretty chaotic scenes.
What we are seeing now makes me far more relived than targetting players who are out of our reach. We need signings and improvement, not vanity gloss to make ourselves feel better. I also think we are seeing the beginnings of the influence of Steve Walsh. That for me can only be a good thing. Whether last season was seen as a fluke or not, what can't be doubted is over 7 or 8 years he did fantastic work recruiting at Leicester. I'm happy to have his stamp put on the recruitment.
As I said around September time, learning from the better bits of the Moyes regime will do us know harm. We routinely signed lads from sides below us, unknown names from abroad or players from the championship. By in large this worked well. What held us back was not the adoption of this plan, but that we were always limited in how much we could do it and towards the end we didn't have the financial might to take players from poorer premier league teams than ourselves.
Baines played for a poor Wigan team. Jagielka got relegated for Sheffield United. Lescott was injured when Wolves were relegated. Cahill played for Millwall. Atria & Peinaar were out of favour at their clubs and basically caste aside. I'm not saying we should look to sign bad players, but that good scouting is the ability to see what others are unable too, and sometimes not just go with whats patently obvious.
I'll do something separately on Lookman. However if Robertson and/or Berahino were on our hit list for me they would both be very decent signings. Robertson would be good competition for Baines, knows the league well and had a good engine. Berahino has fallen completely out of favour, but when at his best he has pace, works hard and can finish. Like Robertson knows the English game very well. Both of them are early 20's.
Neither of them are exotic names from abroad. But more signings like that will help us.
What we are seeing now makes me far more relived than targetting players who are out of our reach. We need signings and improvement, not vanity gloss to make ourselves feel better. I also think we are seeing the beginnings of the influence of Steve Walsh. That for me can only be a good thing. Whether last season was seen as a fluke or not, what can't be doubted is over 7 or 8 years he did fantastic work recruiting at Leicester. I'm happy to have his stamp put on the recruitment.
As I said around September time, learning from the better bits of the Moyes regime will do us know harm. We routinely signed lads from sides below us, unknown names from abroad or players from the championship. By in large this worked well. What held us back was not the adoption of this plan, but that we were always limited in how much we could do it and towards the end we didn't have the financial might to take players from poorer premier league teams than ourselves.
Baines played for a poor Wigan team. Jagielka got relegated for Sheffield United. Lescott was injured when Wolves were relegated. Cahill played for Millwall. Atria & Peinaar were out of favour at their clubs and basically caste aside. I'm not saying we should look to sign bad players, but that good scouting is the ability to see what others are unable too, and sometimes not just go with whats patently obvious.
I'll do something separately on Lookman. However if Robertson and/or Berahino were on our hit list for me they would both be very decent signings. Robertson would be good competition for Baines, knows the league well and had a good engine. Berahino has fallen completely out of favour, but when at his best he has pace, works hard and can finish. Like Robertson knows the English game very well. Both of them are early 20's.
Neither of them are exotic names from abroad. But more signings like that will help us.
