You’re in the middle of a season, it’s almost impossible to get the quality people crave, then on top of that you need to convince this person of quality they’ll be playing second fiddle to Dom.
Jovic being the perfect example.
There’s a whole recruitment team working alongside DoF and manager. I’m pretty sure they’re looking, but as I said before Ancelotti won’t just want anyone for the sake of it
I fully understand and agree with that point.
I'm sure there is a list of targets. I'm not suggesting we rush into deals, but they are there to be done.
Like you, I don't really want Josh King on 100k per week.
But our DoF and his team are paid very well to have these lists drawn up well in advance. It's the major remit of their job. I appreciate what Brands has done in other areas of the club, but I think his squad-building, if you look over the 2.5 years he has now been here, leaves a lot to be desired.
He inherited a massively imbalanced squad but, looking at our squad now, it's still massively imbalanced.
A load of one-paced central midfielders, bar Doucoure. And none of them actually get on the ball and commit defenders/create or score (apart from Doucoure making decent runs into the area - admittedly, he needs to do that more and it seems tactical that he doesn't do it much).
Four very decent CBs, I'm happy with them all, but all right footed. We went for a left-footed CB in Gabriel and pulled out, fine, but then the CB we did go for was of a totally different profile? I'm very happy we have Godfrey, but it seems strange that we've gone for players who are actually very different?
No succession planning for right-back. Has been abundantly clear Kenny wasn't going to be physically good enough for the Premier League. Has also been clear Seamus can't play a whole season or do what he used to, even though he's good to have in the squad. We've had several seasons to sort this out and find the right player.
Pickford's issues have compounded an area which, in all fairness to Brands, I won't argue he should have been looking to address.
Up front, we want to play a 4-3-3 or variation of it, but have James - a classic no.10 type - who can play wide right, and that's it. Iwobi has been decent on the right but when he's pushed high is pretty ineffective. He needs to be running on the ball from deep to be at his best it seems - and actually seems to do that much better in a compact shape as we've been playing through December. Then we have Dom, and Rich. That's it. Gordon isn't trusted, clearly.
That doesn't really say balance to me. And it's been well over two years. Not every deal that's been a bad one has been a Walsh hangover either.
