The recruitment didn't see us finishing 9th. For the majority of the season our team was Henderson, Stevens, O'Connell, Egan, Basham, Baldock, Fleck, Norwood, Lundstram, McGoldrick, McBurnie.
That's two summer signings and one of them was with us the previous season on loan. One of the reasons we went down the following season is because we recruited so poorly in our first season. Everyone else signed players who went straight into their starting line ups. We signed bench warmers. We couldn't even sell to buy as we had no stand out players to sell for big money other than O'Connell.
Half our players lost form after the restart and we the recruitment the following summer was even worse.
Our recruitment has been terrible for five seasons with an over reliance on loan signings leaving the squad we do own woefully inadequate. Loan signings should supplement your squad, they shouldn't be relied on as your main players as it leaves huge holes when they go back to their parent clubs.
That said our loan signings have been awful this season.
All of those players you’ve listed (except Basham) were brought in by the same recruitment team. Those players got us to 9th in that first Prem season.
I fully agree that it’s been poor more recently.