I don’t know. I think if they can get more Fernandes and Welington type players I will be very happy.
Absolutely. I can imagine it now, Fernandes, plays Welington down the wing, he crosses it perfectly for Ross Stewart... Yes they have had some hits, but so far more money wasted than well spent. I am not one of those in the "SR out" camp, and have even defended them a fair few times, but their recruitment on the whole has been poor. If they can sort that out then we might be on to something.
I am sure I’ve seen that at a conservative estimate 45% of all transfers are considered failures. And I think that is on the low end. Sure it sucks how bad some of our moves have been but the implication that SR are uniquely awful is one that should be met with skepticism The issues are partly that we don’t have a lot of money and our high value transfers seem to mostly be bad. And that there are a small handful of clubs (arguably around our size) that seem on the surface to buck this trend (Brighton, Brentford, Bournemouth). But it depends on the time period you are looking over even with the other clubs It would be fascinating to have more understanding of players we have tried for and missed out on. Even if the claim is that maybe some of those were always too ambitious. We were apparently linked with Hojlund pre Atalanta and outside of the toxic mess of Old Trafford he’d probably have been good for what we needed and our level. Strong links with Gakpo and Delap. I guess it doesn’t seem surprising that second and third on the list becomes more of a gamble. The alternative is not signing anyone in certain positions - something else we did especially with strikers and got roundly criticised by the fans and it also showed on the pitch. It’s a tough part of the game and we struggle like many. Just have lower capacity to absorb failures than the likes of spurs and West Ham
The point about our high value transfers failing is a good one. But I don't think it should stop us spending those sorts of fees on single players, as another problem we have is spending £10m each on 3 average players rather than £30m on a good one. Our biggest fees have been shockers: Sulemana: £23m Onuachu: £18m Carrillo: £18m But they have also been January panic buys where we paid way over the odds. The only time we spent that sort of money in a summer window was Ramsdale, who is clearly worth the money.
I wonder if this growing gap between the leagues might lead some players to gamble long term contract security to essentially become “ringers” in a lower league. Outsized pay on a one year deal to help with promotion and then do it another year with another club. Most players have too much professional pride for that Makes me think of something someone posted here that was the cover of an old football comic (I think linked to Roy of the rovers) about a character who was a football mercenary who got paid by the goal and the win. I guess this must have been in a Sunday league setting given that footballers already get paid by goals and wins as well as for just being contracted and not necessarily playing…
More than professional pride I doubt players would do that for lack of security reasons. Doing your ACL on a one year contract is a much bigger issue than a 4-5 year contract.
So far we have paid him almost £1.5m. He has played 130 minutes of football. That’s almost £12000 per minute. I’ll let that sink in. He had £2m left on his contract.
THB and Downes should possibly be on the list as well. Not sure either counts as a total hit or a total shocker.
I acknowledged the gamble on long term contract security at the start. The way current contracts work it wouldn’t happen. But if some rich club that really needed to get back up got relegated and offered someone 100k or more a week for one year in the championship someone might do it. Very unlikely though
