Rook
Player Valuation: £80m
He's a U-21 international for a while. Isn't that taken into consideration when you try for a work permit. Altidore is awesome. Think he's too young for the prem though. Dutch/German league is where he belongs now.
I've been skeptical of US players but the current crop coming up might be a favorite in the 2014/2018 WC if US soccer (motto: we make the English FA look competent) the spent a little money decent manager (Hiddink, Scolari?). Bradley is OK and I like him alot, but too inexperienced at the highest level.
We might want to look more to the US for some younger players. 1st of all the MLS holds on way too long to players and sells them on the cheap when the contract is just about up (see: Dempsey/Adu). Plus, the exchange rate alone makes them an attractive buy (Canadian tourists wave canadian dollar bills in our face to taunt us now). Guys like Setelza who was had for $150k was an insane bargain. If he was English he would have been worth 3-4x that. And hell even if he was a bust that's what 1/100th of Yaukbu's fee?
I was no Adu fan, he's a bit of an a-hole, but if he got in a club like ours with a manager who takes no [Poor language removed] and has a track record of developing young talented players maybe he could be the player he was hyped to be. He was arguably better than Ageuro at the U-20 worlds. It would have been worth the gamble to pay the $1.5mil Benefica paid for him.
Dempsey was a steal at 1.25 mil. He was worth 5x that. For whatever team he's at when Fulham goes down he'll be that team's Tim Cahill.
