Simple question. I myself feel we should start looking at bringing in players from the Championship etc. Instead of always looking abroad.
Well depending on where we finish this year but my take on it is when we were top eight the last two seasons we looked a good proposition to a certain standard and type of player. Looking at it now should we finish 16th or thereabouts some of the players we might have attracted will look elsewhere, not all of them obviously, but I would imagine a lot of young talented players do not want to leave home go to another country to play for a team that loses on a regular basis. Good Championship players looking to impress would be very interested. Of course that means they might take a whole season to get into the swing of things. Either way unless we dramatically improve in the next few months or the club changes it's whole approach I can see this season really messing up a lot of our recruitment strategy. Afterall it's not like players and agents don't talk to each other.
There are bargains though. It just seems we would rather get a bargain from Europe then the Championship.
Demarai Gray stands out to me. What happened to Will Hughes? He was linked with everyone, got injured, but his contract is running down. Maybe not a position we're after though. That's all I can think of without surfing Wikipedia.
Not just on about the Championship tbf. Mawson looks decent for £5m. Antonio for £7m was a good price. Then you have Austin for us. Then look at teams like Burnley.
When both Norwich and ourselves got promoted a number of players got pushed up with us, as well as some picked up from that excellent Huddersfield and Leeds team: e.g. Hoolahan, Snodgrass, Howson, Puncheon, Clyne etc. I think it does go in waves though, but prices may be the biggest draw back. Hendrick and possibly Lookman might be considered Championship gems.
With the new TV deal that has a massive knock on effect to the Championship. Relegated teams have the parachute payments which are even bigger than before, which so far they appear to be happy to spend the first season attempting to get back to PL riches. Teams who fancy their chances of promotion (which is about 75% of the championship before the season starts) aren't going to sell their best players cheap as promotion is worth so much financially. Look at last summer and some of the fees being spent/received in the championship, players who realistically could improve us will cost as much as a Van Dijk or Wanyama
Slightly different as he was out of contract in 6 months so was far cheaper than if he had a couple of years left on his deal
Austins contract was run down so that's not fair to compare really. No doubt some good players in the championship but as a policy I'm not sure. We signed Redmond from relegated Norwich. The money is trickling down.
Obviously he's been a PL player this season, but Snodgrass has played most of his career in the FL. And he's someone who we've had first hand experience of fro sometime, back from his time at Leeds. I suspect Brady will improve Burnley.
Again Brady is someone who has been in the PL recently and is more a proven commodity. I took Beefys question to mean untested players in the Prem
In truth though most lower league players would only be using us as a stepping stone. Mind you of late perhaps it could be said that most we sign seem to be just using us. Another idea that came to me......would some agree the standard of teams we have been buying from of late are no better than the higher championship level.? Maybe we should start doing what some of of the bigger clubs are doing to us and buy the better players from the teams that can't quite make it to the premier year in year out?
In that case then, I'd be interested to see if Will Hughes (already mentioned) and Nakhi Wells can make the step up.
