All about opinions mate. Mine is we've now gotten ourselves into an unwanted habit of paying premium fees for non-premium players...and if we add Depay to Bolassie and Schneiderlin it'll conform it in my mind.
I think your concerns are fair Dave and not worthy of the stick you are getting. I don't agree but they are legitimate concerns.
In the abstract 22 million is big money, no getting away from that. However is it big money compared too 30 million for Sissoko, or 26 million for Wijnaldum? Or 13 million for Mason? The Premier League is awash with money, most clubs have more money than sense with a large dose of desperation kicking in. We all want to make better signings with the money we have, however everyone has money so we haven't really jumped up the pecking order so much, we just have more money to spend. Can you honestly not put Schneiderlin alongside those players and see it's around market value? What I'm saying is it is the market that's nuts not our buying power.
It is reasonable to suggest that the spending is excessive and not prudent. However what would be reasonable is to then state how you might want us to develop. I know you have some names last night, Brandt & Horn. Both good names, both well within our price bracket. The blunt reality is though, that if we bid for them a more exciting club comes in and we will not be the preferred option.
In a converse sense, I think the best strategy going forward is to have Walsh slowly adding unknown names that the footballing world haven't really heard of. The sorts of names all of us as fans will be moaning about "who are they?" Lads like Gana are a prime example of this. Very few people were happy with this, I was lukewarm and I'm a generally positive guy! What needs to happen for me, is Walsh needs to sign players we haven't heard of, so we jump ahead of other Premier league teams. I do think that will happen increasingly.
Koeman has had a big input on Schneiderlin, Williams & Bolasie (you can add Sigurdson, and Fonte to that list as well) but I do think his input on signings will decline as he spends longer in the job. The contacts he has built up will lesson and players he previously worked with or against will become more distant. I don't begrudge paying the inflated fees for them being at English clubs as a short term fix, but on the proviso that it's not a long term model.
That being said, of all the players we've been linked with in that grouping, I think Schneiderlin represents by far and away the best value. You don't fancy him, which is fair enough but I think he's very good and will improve our first 11.