Not going to dig out any one player - with our litany of awful buys it's easier to classify by players who actually look the part - but collectively, why are we so bad at this side of the game? I don't think it's even a slight exaggeration to say we have the worst transfer record in football per bang for buck ratio and successful signings over the last 2, 5 or 10 year periods. Indeed, the last time a thread was made asking posters who had been outright successes here in the post-Fergie era, it came back with Bruno, Amad and not much else, or certainly not even a consensus on even a handful of other good buys in what was then 10 years, and things have gotten even worse since then.
One way to circumvent terrible scouting and recruitment is to simply purchase as many touted S and A tier talents as you can - a player like Yoro, for example, was classed as the best prospective CB talent in the game before we laid eyes on him (insofar as being actively linked); I believe the Arsenal kids we scooped up lately were also said to be destined for big things, which essentially means others had done the groundwork and there's not much of anything for our lot to screw up, as they are so apt at doing when asked to unearth talent or find legitimate diamonds in the rough.
The lack of technical ability in the players we've gone about paying over the odds for is only outdone by the ill-fitting nature of the vast number in terms of physical suitability and/or fitness to the league and our cause. I don't get how so many other clubs - so-called minnows or lesser ones - are able to bring in talent from as far flung as South America and have them not only come in as bargains but be worth north of £60m within a season or two on a regular basis yet we've not managed to make a star out of a single "no name" since, perhaps, Chicarito? Is that correct? We've gone from a club who scouted the likes of Nemanja Vidic playing football in Russia; Ole Gunnar Solskjaer being plucked from relative obscurity in Norway; de Gea going on to be a world class keeper; Rafael being brought in from Fluminese (when we were able to make amazing finds on the other side of the planet); Nani from Sporting, to not being able to pick a talent of our own accord. The list goes on and on and I've made sure to parse players who were already considered special talents before they got here like: Park, who was tearing it up in Holland and the CL, or Cantona, who was always known as a mercurial nightmare before even setting foot in England and so on and so forth.
We also used to be superb in both the domestic and big buy markets. In fact, I think it's fair to say we were only middling in the market you're supposed to be middling in, which is the literal speculative punt market, where you know beforehand that these players might've been lucky to even make the squad, let alone go on to become first team regulars. Our general quality in recruitment now is worse than our level of success in the speculative punt market of those times, it's fair to say. But how has this happened? It'd be understandable if players coming in were very good to outstanding as individuals who were just a bad fit with us, but it seems to be deeper than that as we are more likely to buy objectively bad players in their peer group, than good ones who other clubs would immediately take off our hands if offered for what we paid for them.
Honestly, this department has been one of the most surreal to follow since 2013 when the great man left. We've gone from one of the best on the planet at sniffing out talent to not seeing/recruiting it unless already propped up by another clubs' ability to hone. At unders level, we're still actually very good at recruitment and the academy pushing through talent seems a more likely route to us having special talent in the first team than our ability and skill in the big boy market to outright buy in brilliance.
Is it unfair to state we're close to being able to field a 'were never good enough from the outset' xi? Meaning players who came in below the bar and have not outdone there "X" rate. As our purse strings tighten, it feels as though our recruitment has to suddenly take a leap back to something like it used to be for us to have a prayer of zipping up the table to the CL places let alone challenging for the title. Is it beyond those who are currently in those departments to achieve this? The S tier route isn't really an option for us; that is the blueprint for Madrid of the current age. A tier is an expensive and mostly unpredictable ride; it seems to be the domain of the likes of Chelsea and PSG now, but what I'm really set on is our ability to operate in the B and C tier markets where the likes of Liverpool, Newcastle, Bayern and so forth tend to thrive and turn lesser regarded or sought after players into coveted ones. Why can't we do that? Or can we? Is our recruitment likely to turn around any time soon, in your opinion? Do you feel like things are looking like they're about to pick up?
One way to circumvent terrible scouting and recruitment is to simply purchase as many touted S and A tier talents as you can - a player like Yoro, for example, was classed as the best prospective CB talent in the game before we laid eyes on him (insofar as being actively linked); I believe the Arsenal kids we scooped up lately were also said to be destined for big things, which essentially means others had done the groundwork and there's not much of anything for our lot to screw up, as they are so apt at doing when asked to unearth talent or find legitimate diamonds in the rough.
The lack of technical ability in the players we've gone about paying over the odds for is only outdone by the ill-fitting nature of the vast number in terms of physical suitability and/or fitness to the league and our cause. I don't get how so many other clubs - so-called minnows or lesser ones - are able to bring in talent from as far flung as South America and have them not only come in as bargains but be worth north of £60m within a season or two on a regular basis yet we've not managed to make a star out of a single "no name" since, perhaps, Chicarito? Is that correct? We've gone from a club who scouted the likes of Nemanja Vidic playing football in Russia; Ole Gunnar Solskjaer being plucked from relative obscurity in Norway; de Gea going on to be a world class keeper; Rafael being brought in from Fluminese (when we were able to make amazing finds on the other side of the planet); Nani from Sporting, to not being able to pick a talent of our own accord. The list goes on and on and I've made sure to parse players who were already considered special talents before they got here like: Park, who was tearing it up in Holland and the CL, or Cantona, who was always known as a mercurial nightmare before even setting foot in England and so on and so forth.
We also used to be superb in both the domestic and big buy markets. In fact, I think it's fair to say we were only middling in the market you're supposed to be middling in, which is the literal speculative punt market, where you know beforehand that these players might've been lucky to even make the squad, let alone go on to become first team regulars. Our general quality in recruitment now is worse than our level of success in the speculative punt market of those times, it's fair to say. But how has this happened? It'd be understandable if players coming in were very good to outstanding as individuals who were just a bad fit with us, but it seems to be deeper than that as we are more likely to buy objectively bad players in their peer group, than good ones who other clubs would immediately take off our hands if offered for what we paid for them.
Honestly, this department has been one of the most surreal to follow since 2013 when the great man left. We've gone from one of the best on the planet at sniffing out talent to not seeing/recruiting it unless already propped up by another clubs' ability to hone. At unders level, we're still actually very good at recruitment and the academy pushing through talent seems a more likely route to us having special talent in the first team than our ability and skill in the big boy market to outright buy in brilliance.
Is it unfair to state we're close to being able to field a 'were never good enough from the outset' xi? Meaning players who came in below the bar and have not outdone there "X" rate. As our purse strings tighten, it feels as though our recruitment has to suddenly take a leap back to something like it used to be for us to have a prayer of zipping up the table to the CL places let alone challenging for the title. Is it beyond those who are currently in those departments to achieve this? The S tier route isn't really an option for us; that is the blueprint for Madrid of the current age. A tier is an expensive and mostly unpredictable ride; it seems to be the domain of the likes of Chelsea and PSG now, but what I'm really set on is our ability to operate in the B and C tier markets where the likes of Liverpool, Newcastle, Bayern and so forth tend to thrive and turn lesser regarded or sought after players into coveted ones. Why can't we do that? Or can we? Is our recruitment likely to turn around any time soon, in your opinion? Do you feel like things are looking like they're about to pick up?