What transfer activity do you expect if De Boer gets the job?

[braineclipse]

Well I'm reliably informed that Daley Blind is nothing particularly special and is in fact not even a real left back, yet some seem to claim he's the answer to all our LB woes. Although Ajax are a massive name, they're not currently a particularly good football team - as evidenced by them being picked apart by the champions of Austria. So I struggle with this idea of de Boer bringing half the Ajax squad with him. Maybe I do GB a disservice and he does in fact watch loads of games but it's a little confusing when he was so vocally against us signing Christian Eriksen yet he implores the signings of players who outside of a few Dutch circles aren't really considered anything other than decent.

Cheers. This I think is a bit more informative

 

[Cochise]

We could sell Paulinho for £25m (if you believe the rumours) and get in Clasie, the best left back available and Veltman and still have change lol. I would however like to see some english talent get some games.

 

[braineclipse]

Was watching this in another thread and thought of the discussion from yesterday:

[video=youtube;0tZ6AleCouk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tZ6AleCouk[/video]

I think to some extent at least it illustrates the argument made by myself and KD on the previous page. Looking at that video there is King and Modric and the emerging brilliance of Bale. But there's also a hell of a lot of Crouch, Huddlestone, Kranjcar, Defoe etc.

Slightly more quantifiable is our squad list from that season, could have pasted all of it, but no real need: http://www.whoscored.com/Teams/30/Archive?stageId=3115

The interesting thing (for me) is the number of appearances and starts for players that were signed within half a season of that 09/10 season starting (first number is starts, additional sub appearances after):

-Defoe - 31(3)
-Palacios - 29(4)
-Bassong - 25(3)
-Crouch - 21(17)
-Kranjcar - 19(5)

Even Kaboul and Eidur signed that January had an important impact.

Had all or most of those signings been potential signings from abroad I don't think that success would have come. And I even think there's a decent chance that a few of those that went on to become superstars for us might not have done so.