05-08-2023, 08:53 AM
(05-08-2023, 07:44 AM)D'Alessandro dreaming Wrote:It makes far more sense to invest in young promising talent that will improve with time and experience.(03-08-2023, 08:29 AM)Hammie Wrote: Spend on recruiting players who will have a resale value. But don't risk the entire future of the club by going for a quick fix. The financial figures for champ clubs are frightening, not just for one club but for almost all of them and their futures.
I found it absolutely bizarre that people on pompey twitter were calling for us to spend big because of the relative weakness of the league this year compared to last year. There just isn't a financial windfall waiting for us in the championship to justify an enormous splurge on players like Championship clubs chasing promotion have to aim for. I'm not a 'happy clapper', to this day I still think the Eisner's should have spent more in that infamous January 2019 window that still gives me nightmares, but I do generally see the benefits of the strategy. There is little benefit to promotion to the championship if you aren't Championship ready as teams like Wigan, Barnsley and Rotherham have found out many a time.
The disastrous purchases of Ellis Harrison and John Marquis clearly made the owners wary of expensive signings with short term on pitch benefit in mind. To this day buying an injured Bryn Morris still smells dodgy.
Richard Hughes has turned our recruitment around. The first signs were with Towler and Lane in January and then this window has been the best since 15/16 for my money. Not a ragtag cavalcade of loanees and speculative punts. The few speculative punts like Yengi are low risk.
Selection of those young players is key. Get it right for most of the intake and we won’t need to spend large amounts. It’ll be interesting to see what percentage of this intake succeed.