I get it, you want the magic wand, the club to buy the next superstar batch of strikers at a low cost with a huge sell on value. The main issue being that everybody else is looking for the same thing and they don’t grow on trees, even players with limited experience can attract hefty price tags based on potential alone. The market is now mad. What happens when the potential strikers we invest with no track record turn into a Simon Cox and a HRK? Look how much money was wasted on Burke. Quality strikers are rare commodities, when you get one it pays good heed to hold onto them. I’ve been watching us since 1993, in the last 26 years the only strikers worth mentioning have been Super Bob, Andy Hunt, Hughes, Lukuku, Odemwingie, SKP and Gayle. That’s 7 in 26 years! Our aim next season has to be to throw everything at a promotion push, we’re not yet a mid table championship team looking to build. Our resources and ambition is bigger than that. If we lose the parachute money we will have to take more of a longer term view and settle for less but it’s worth keeping at it.
I don’t have a problem with lowering the age of the squad but that shouldn’t be a precursor to trying to resign Gayle as well. Committing £10m and wages on a quality forward isn’t financial kamikaze, in the grand scheme of things. We have resources that few other teams in our league can match.
You come out with some poor shouts but this right up there.
I've been going up since 88.
Don Goodman, Bob Taylor, Andy Hunt, Paul Peschisolido, Lee Hughes, Jason Roberts, Robert Earnshaw, Kanu, Dio Kamara, Kevin Phillips, Ismael Miller, Peter Odemwingie, Romelu Lukaku, Saido Berahino, Salomon Rondon, Jay Rodriguez and Dwight Gayle.
We've consistently had excellent strikers aside from the one season it really mattered under Mowbray (and if James hadn't crocked Ish I think he was headed for the very top and would have kept us up).
Gayle was great, I'd love him back if Slaven Bilic wants him, but it won't be anything more than a loan and I have serious reservations about that with the wage he's on.
{Apologies to the likes of Kevin Bartlett, Scott Dobie, Geoff Horsfield, Marc Fortune, Carlos Vela and Roman Bednar, but never Shane Long}