Those have been our best buys actually
Are you sure? Best young players these days all cost 9 figures: Mbappe, Dembele, Joao Felix. Sometimes you have to buy quality players who are still young and have best years ahead, instead of going for older players like Sanchez who just went downhill and breaking salary structure with negative effect.
I guess Di Maria and Lukaku stick out in peoples minds as big money flops, but we got back most of the money for those. I agree we've been very crap with older players and especially with punts; James seems to be the one from a sea of punts that actually works out. We've been crap under SAF too when it comes to punts, just look at the shower of sh3te be bought in his last few years, Bebe, Powel, Henriques, Diuf, Obertan, Tosic, De Laet
We're not very good at unearthing gems are we?The bar was set low.
Wrong. He would be the standard of footballer we need. Give me one Sancho for 150 million instead of the likes of Fred, Matic and co for 200 million.
They're mostly our best players. Same hopefully with AWB and Maguire.
Having those players with nothing else isnt helping us now is it. No one there outside of DDG has proven worth the money.
Martial will eventually I reckon. He’s currently our best attacking option.
Wrong, we'd have a half and half team. What's the point of signing a 150 million quid winger when we have 7 first 11 players not quite good enough for where we are trying to be? LB, CB, CM, CM, SS, LW and RW are all problems at the moment and signing one player for the right wing wont get us anywhere.
I agree with that but that's still a projection. We still haven't seen it yet.
Wrong. Signing us mediocre players won't get us anywhere. We need an elite talent like him that comes along once in awhile. Smart purchases can happen alongside that every summer. But there's talents you break the bank for and he's that.
I take it we rate him very differently. imo he's no Neymar/Mbappe level talent. You seem to think he is. A player like that i wouldnt object all that much.
I don't forsee us pulling off three signings as Liverpool did with their front three AND coaching them into becoming top players as Klopp did. I have to be realistic about the state of our management here. Klopp and Pep won't go for 150 million pound players because they don't need to given they coach the team superbly. Our situation is closer to that of Real Madrid's (but worse) where they bought their way to attempting to competing with Barcelona (to be fair so have Liverpool and City). Now I still believe we should try to make clever signings of course. We'll have to in this market to build a strong team without emptying our pockets.
It would basically be analogous to when you signed Rooney. If you have the money and he wants to come, it's a no brainer.
Nope, not the same. Rooney was one of the best players in the world when we signed him as proven by the Euro in 04, Sancho isn't and hasn't.
Mahrez was 60 million. 50 million wasn't exorbitant even in those days. As i said, it was a big but reasonable fee.
Not this sterling but we have to back ourselves to develop players here or use them well enough for them to develop here. As you mention Zaha I'm pretty sure he wont be going for the numbers being tossed around.
Lets not get carried away, he was one of the biggest talents in Europe but certainly not one of the best players in the world back then.
That's pretty much our pitch isn't it. Ole and Woody's project, be a part of history
All of a sudden the Bundesliga is this elite league. It's hot trash. Their best teams are not even relevant on the European stage. Both easily dismissed by Pool and Spurs and coincidently Jadon could not get the "run of the green" vs Spurs like he does every week in Germany.
