Why did we pay so much for a championship winger?
We paid what we did because he is, to a measure approaching consensus, Palace's best player. I realise that they're Palace, and they're Championship, but the principle extends across football: you ask top price for your best player.
Also, they want to keep him for the rest of the season. If he went in summer, there would be more competition for him. Guaranteed. Clubs wouldn't have the "oh, it's January - not getting involved" excuse, and would, generally speaking, have more money freed up. Getting him now means going in ahead of all that Banned Paper garbage and squabbling, real and imagined, with clubs like Arsenal and Spurs and whoever else wants a pop, or can be represented as wanting a piece of him. You pay for that.
Surely the money could have went on a quality and proven player.
Aye, but wide youngsters wiv potential is something we
simply and absolutely don't have. As far as I can tell, there is utterly fuck-all in the reserves and academy to interest us on that front for a long while. Fuck putting central playmaker types and strikers out there on anything more than an emergency basis. And yeah, it could be suggested that we should have picked a CL experienced winger up from someone for somewhere around 15-20m, but any club with a molecule of transfer market nous is going to take that opportunity to bum you and your poor old January wallet to death over it. Take the way we got supposedly stitched up over Zaha and replicate it, but with a
starting point of 15m, rather than a conclusion.
It's a pretty bizarre signing imo, could have spent 15m more wisely.
It's not something I would have predicted (I thought Zaha was nailed on for Arsenal, but it turns out Wenger is an utter baby), but it's not absurd. I mean, the RAWK line is "how dare Frogie call Sturridge a managerial risk when he has gone and spent big on a Championship prospect ?" Well, Sturridge has got to score goals consistently for Liverpool (tbf, he looks like doing so) or else not only is he useless but the team as a whole (until they get to the next window) is relying on Suarez and lol Borini and a pack of foetuses to get them wins. Zaha, media bollocks aside, has a more generous window of adequate achievement - United will manage without him setting the world on fire right away.
