18-02-2020, 07:25 PM
I know very little about Sam McCallum, but I always remember Bobby Robsons brilliant quote
"If you keep signing players from the lower leagues, that's where you'll end up."
Ipswich did it 18 months ago. I guess in modern football, you could include European 2nd tier leagues outside of Italy, Spain and maybe Germany as being lower leagues.
Obviously I'm not suggesting there aren't gems down there, but I still think we must be exercising caution when spending significant cash on lower league players. Yates and Tyler have both been key players in a league 1 promotion push over last couple of years and Jorge Grant was banging in goals in league 2 for fun from midfield. At present it is debatable if any of these are regular top end Championship material yet.
Signing the right players is probably the 2nd hardest thing to do in football (after scoring goals).
4 of our current "best" (starting) 11 were signed last summer- that is a fact, so not too shabby.
"If you keep signing players from the lower leagues, that's where you'll end up."
Ipswich did it 18 months ago. I guess in modern football, you could include European 2nd tier leagues outside of Italy, Spain and maybe Germany as being lower leagues.
Obviously I'm not suggesting there aren't gems down there, but I still think we must be exercising caution when spending significant cash on lower league players. Yates and Tyler have both been key players in a league 1 promotion push over last couple of years and Jorge Grant was banging in goals in league 2 for fun from midfield. At present it is debatable if any of these are regular top end Championship material yet.
Signing the right players is probably the 2nd hardest thing to do in football (after scoring goals).
4 of our current "best" (starting) 11 were signed last summer- that is a fact, so not too shabby.