I hate lists like this. First of all, many of these players were bought for the future and calling them "shower of shit" is just wrong. I like that we have a manager that doesn't thinks long term - only by investing in talented players early we can hope to compete with the likes of City and Chelsea.
But the bigger reason posts like this bug me is the idea that you can list every single signing that was not an unqualified success, put together the amounts and say "if only [the amount in question] was spent on [some player bought by another team who is currently hot]." Friends, I hate to state what should be obvious, but life doesn't work this way! Every single manager will sign lots of "wrong" players - it doesn't mean those decisions at the time were necessarily wrong, things just don't work out sometimes. It's like saying if a poker player doesn't draw the strongest from the deck every time, it's a mistake. In football, you can produce the same list of "failures" for Wenger or Klopp or any other manager who is considered shrewd in the market and say "if only they saved all this money and instead signed player X" - so what? What matters is the end result, whether they built a strong team or not. Also, if you need to strengthen 2 positions in the first team squad, add depth and competition in 3 more positions and also buy a couple of players for the future, you can't add all of the those amounts together and say "let's not spend any money on other areas and just buy a 45M world-class striker/midfielder!" This is also wishful thinking. Teams need to evolve and you can't "save" on one area or necessary repairs in order to improve another no more than you can "save" by skipping on pants and shoes in order to buy a chic neck-tie.
Anyway, I don't mean all of this this personally against the post and the poster above. It's just this kind of logic is very prevalent on all fan forums and frankly it makes no sense to me at all.
I hate expending energy and effort when it will do little to fuck all, especially when discussing topics that have been discussed over and over (is some guise for the last 20 years), in reality I don't have too much of a problem with Alberto (young, obviously talented and looks classy) and even Allen (needed a rest, needs gametime now, and still got to be worth around £10m, plus you go to what you know). I do have a problem with £20 million worth of talent being out on loan, especially since everyone of those signings could have been seen as a mistake before their purchase (Borini and Assaidi, who share £100k a week between their wages, hence loan), and I do have a problem buying for 2-3 years down the road when we need 1st team players now. You want to plan for the future, buy under 18s, not £7million 21 year olds.
And you want a god damn name? I believe I have said this in a thread within the last couple of days, but I'd buy Sebastian Rode from Frankfurt, possibly have a look at Rodrigo Caio (always a bit wary of Brazillians in their native league though) as it's bloody obvious as well as attacking talent (did we need to bring moses on loan to know he was shit?) that we need a new DM, or a 2nd even, as teams are able to waltz through our midfield.
With the exception of Allen (who could be argued is a first teamer, just isn't top quality yet, and isn't being used) it could be argued that every other signing on that list that you hate so much, could have been judged to be not good enough for us, or at least what we needed now, their fees (before wages, before agent fees, so more cost lost) still amount to £35 fucking million, which is at least 1 quality 1st teamer in anyone's books. You might argue we have built the squad, but Wisdom, Flanno and Sterling sit on our bench over our new defender and winger, and bloody rightly so!
Also it's not like I'm going back years for a huge tally of success and failure (ala the amount of people who called Rafa's 6 years of buys), I'm going back less than 18 months, where a HIGH number for signings have been mediocre at best, or a quickly identified failure. It's ok for City, Chelsea, The mancs, they can afford to waste money on the wrong player, whereas we need to try and get every one right. Some of the above never needed to pull on a red shirt to know they were shite.
Oh, and if it wasn't for a quality signing last night, what score would that have been?
