Brands takes the flack for me - lets be honest Godfrey aside (who even then cost us £25 million) his signings have been lazy and largely just sign whatever cast off the big clubs deem not good enough.
You have players like Eze going for £18 million, Soucek for £15 million - why isn't our supposed world class DOF (renowned for unearthing talent im told) nowhere to be seen bringing in these players?
These days every PL side has money it all comes down to quality of manager and recruitment - we have the former in Carlo but we are severely lacking in the latter.
Even this window we'll bring in someone like Khedira or Isco (not that I wouldn't be happy enough with those deals) but its just lazy and not addressing the fundamental issue that we are desperately for ambitious players with fight and importantly Pace Pace Pace!
Id have probably argued against you a season ago but to be honest I don’t know the scope of what Brands does. If it’s to get the manager’s deals over the line within the financial goalposts available to the club then I’d argue he’s done that. Ancelotti obviously had a list that had James and Allan as top targets and the club delivered them. Equally Silva had Richarlison on his and the club delivered that.
The rumours of Isco and Khedira seem to make it clear that the manager is suggesting the players. If that’s a change in tact from the Silva regime then Brands can take some flak for the likes of Delph Mina Kean Bernard etc. If it’s not a change though then how do we know that Brands didn’t just deliver the players Silva wanted?
Part of it is bad luck also. If Gbamin was fit, Gomes hadn’t broken his leg, Allan and James were ever presents then I’d doubt we’d ever see Davies and Siggurdson. Carlo has done his best to phase out both but they keep returning because they stay fit when the others don’t.
You’re completely right though, the game is about pace and we don’t have much. That doesn’t mean I want us to buy Zaha for 70 million. But the likes of Godfrey and Doucoure are the direction we should be going in. To that end it was annoying we got rid of Lookman and Kean but neither seemed to want to play for us.
I think we’ve got an ok core of quick (enough) powerful players in Godfrey Holgate Digne Doucoure Allan Richarlison DCL Iwobi. It’s nowhere near enough though especially when a few are missing. We need to add to this group but it’s encouraging that 6 of those 8 names have arrived in recent windows.
