For the record I completely agree we need to be looking abroad for most of our signings, especially a CF. The point is that the vast majority of us would have been happy if we signed the likes of Musa, Slimani, Gabbiadini, Mitrovic, Hernandez in the last 18 months and they have all been a failure to some degree and not one if them is 1st choice for their club. Would anyone of them really be a huge upgrade on Rondon?
If/when we sign a new CF the chances are he won't be much better than Rondon and could well turn out to be worse. Again, that doesn't mean we don't try but just that in comparison to most of his peers Rondon is doing 'ok'.
For example I was really disappointed when we didn't sign Slimani but he looked absolute dreadful against Fleetwood in the week and is apparently available for loan. I thought Musa would have been a good signing on loan at the start of the season and he's barely a footballer these days. Of course any of the names you mention could come in and score 20 goals for a club but history suggests it's far more likely they will be the next Slimani, Rondon, Gabbiadini etc.
I know what you're saying when you say there is no absolute guarentee about any of the strikers I mentioned. I think though that if we restrict ourselves to just the Premier League, you are probably looking at an extra 25% or so premium on their value, which is going to put most outside our budget. What I'm saying is that if you have proper scouting in the other main leagues you can save yourself a helluva lot of money further down the line. If we had been in for Arnoutovic, the Korean guy at Spurs, Firmino, Mhyktarian, Sigurdsson when they were with German clubs, we'd be laughing now. Now they are out of our range.
Bringing it back to Rondon (before the Moderator's mention it
, at the least, he needs more competition than JayRod and HRK, although I think JRod is a good player. One way or another, scoring more goals is an absolute priority.