hypochondriac

I think that the alternative to him in the squad at the time would have done worse than he did with the little opportunity he had therefore he improved the squad

Why are you replying to me like I'm endorsing us buying squad players and no one else? I don't agree with the philosophy and the club have said it was a mistake.

Over the entirety of the season yes because he didn't play but he had a positive impact at the start of the season when he was in the team. It's hardly his fault if the managerial geniuses that are Selles and Jones prefer to play Elyounoussi.

He showed he had a bit about him in early games. He was then dropped entirely in place of solid and shot players through no fualt of his own. He had very little impact in truth. He was a young squad player brought in to gain a season of experience, hopefully improve over time and then be sold on for a profit.

Ridiculous comment.

Yes. Because he was a squad player.

What evidence do you have that he was being signed as a starter? At 7 million I would say he was very much a squad player, one that woukd show enough quality that we could flog him in a few years for a profit (something that could still happen)

There's no evidence that we used up funds on youth prospects which prevented us from buying experienced players. Given our spending in January, we clearly had funds, our experienced buys (Gakpo, martinez) turned us down.

Yeah he was shit. Failing to sign the right experienced players (or not signing any) was the issue.

So if we'd done what we should have done and brought in some experience alongside Edozie whilst he learnt his craft last season, would you still be saying he was signed to deliver in his first season in the Premier league? His signing was not the problem, failing to sign others of a different profile so we're forced to be overly reliant on the young talent was the issue.

I'm not sure you'll find anyone arguing that we shouldn't have signed a decent striker last summer (least of all me since I was banging on about it on here despite the likes of Lighthouse trying to tell me that Mara had been our striker signing.)

I don't think there's any evidence that we weren't prepared to spend more on a striker. In fact the evidence suggests the opposite.

Yes but it may not have been a binary choice between the two.

So the issue wasn't with Edozie last year then, it was with the failure of our more experienced players to deliver.

It's not great expense though. Buying a more experienced version of some of these players would be an obscene cost that we couldn't afford.

Great to see all these links coming in suddenly. Seems like we are getting to work now finally. I expect we will see a lot of movement next week.

Salisu and ABK are leaving.

Exactly. It depends what you mean by failure. I don't think he was ever signed last year to be a first team regular.

I couldn't disagree more. We badly need a striker.

In the prem in their debut seasons I agree. We are now in the championship and some of them have had ajpther season of experience and are a year older.

I agree. He could end up being a failure here but that will at least in part be our fault and how we handled him last year. Even if he is, it doesn't make the strategy we are on bad. We only need one Lavia or Bazunu and it becomes well worth it and the strategy is even better in the championship where the players don't have to be as good so quickly.

It seems fairly unlikely to me but I would absolutely love it if he came back and played a role next year. Probably as backup but it would just be pleasing to see him out there.

Our strategy is very obviously to buy promising youngsters to utilise in and around the first team. We've done that with the Chelsea right back this week and have done it the past too with Tino.l and we've clearly gone for a lot of City youth due to the size of their squads and the lack of pathway for youngsters to the first team. Being overly reliant on youth was obviously a mistake last year and the club have said as much this year and imo it's likely that we will get in experience alongside investment in young players. It's too early and we won't yet be able to tell if we will recoup our investment in Bazunu, Larios and Edozie or make a profit. Edozie in particular could have a season like Tella this season and then it will look like a shrewd move. Bazunu has a chance of coming good too even if I personally wouldn't want him as first choice.

Like Lavia you mean? Or Tino? No one can argue that we haven't extracted maximum value from both of those signings.

Again what does that mean? We've signed loads of players from City because a load of our former and current staff are from City and probably have some pre-exisiting relationships and knowledge of a lot of their players. It's incredibly likely imo that this midfielder is more skilled than anyone else we would get for the money and is available because they want game time and city can't give it to them. He's probably looked at how it's worked out for Lavia and jumped at the chance. It's bizarre so many people calling it dodgy because we've looked at the best club in the country with their giant squads and got into a position where we have a great relationship with them and can get a great number of their players.