So are we… More than a bit I’d say. But it depends on what you are benchmarking against for both us and the players
Probably just players people haven't heard of - which is daft because the majority of people (myself included) won't know many players playing outside the UK.
Rasmus himself came into the club saying that they would focus on buying young players to develop and sell on for a higher fee. So that there is your SR style signing. Now I've got no problem with that, in theory, so long as it doesn't mean we miss out on quality signings for the first team. Essentially what I'm saying, is that instead of buying half a dozen inexperienced youngsters who might come good, for once I'd rather we just spent the money on one or two more expensive players who are proven at this level. Magic made a good point that the senior players we have signed have hardly been much better than the youngsters, but I'd suggest that this is because there is less money left over, after spending so much on the young ones (Remember we missed out on Gakpo that summer). Also, we have an academy. A good one. Will the pathway be blocked if we keep signing more youngsters? We signed Sanda for 5m in January. Now we sign Quarshie for 4m. Even though we have Edwards and Wood as our back up/ones for the future. How many CBs do we need? All those small fees add up, and eventually you can't afford the better players at all.
In fairness Edwards was one of those youngsters (Wood too). Signed for £3m and will likely go on to be a regular for us this season and more than likely is destined for the PL - hopefully with us! When we have spent big on more established players, such as Onuachu & Sulemana, they have been crap. I don't think it matters so much if we buy young talents or established players, we just need to make sure they are good players... easier said than done!
I don’t think Sulemana was established. In fact I’d class him as one of the young-with-potential signings. Edwards looks class, but he has already had several seasons in League One and been voted player of the season for P’boro. That’s exactly the type of signing I’m happy with. But why then sign three more CBs (Wood, Sanda, Quarshie?)
Sulemana had played 2 seasons in Ligue 1 and was fairly well known across Europe. Bigger clubs than us were linked to him. I think we will be playing 3 at the back so will need at least 5 CBs in the first team squad.
Regardless, the point stands that we always sign a load of players for smaller fees, rather than spending big on proven quality. Buying a few like that is great, but not a dozen.
Agree with this. And the key thing for SR is clearly value. I think all the young CBs mentioned feel like good value so its less a case of 'will they all play?' and more a case of 'if they reach their potential what will they be worth'?. As mentioned - the alternative is often players like Orsic, Cornet etc who should be plug and play but really, really wern't!! In fairness buying high potential players instead of PL experience has been a recipe for success for almost every team who has managed to stay up recently.
But we spent big on Onuachu & Sulemana - they were both just crap Same with our other big signings other than Ings. I think the bigger issue is that the majority of our signings, whether cheap or expensive, have just been a bit useless. Hopefully that changes with Spors.
When it works as it did for Brighton, Brentford it brought the money in to invest more deeply in their squads it's risk v reward having and keeping hold of the best scouts and directors of football obviously helps.
Is £20m big? Not really. We’ve never gone north of that. Look at Sunderland. Straight away they spend £30m on someone.
Sounded like someone assumed 10m due to an assumption of a sell on being on the whole fee (rather than profit) and that Salzburg would definitively want to break even. When they might just want to move him on if they don’t want him. And accounting break even would be lower anyway
Don’t they both play primarily from the right? Or am I imagining this. Wouldn’t be surprised if he is the replacement for Fellows If we’d been in the prem we might have gone in for him
I don’t think spending money on youngsters is why we missed out on Gakpo somehow. He waited six months and got Liverpool …
I think it's a fair point about focussing our spending on bigger signings but it's probably more relevant when and if we get promoted again than it is this year.
https://x.com/apaglia7/status/1939706170379218947?s=46 Sulemana having medical. Must be confident of passing as posting pictures /. Videos
