I don’t agree to be honest. Judging by the dates provided by Billy, it seems it was a relatively quick turnaround for the deal.
I also never once felt the deal was in doubt… and feel that we were actually rather prudent with it. We couldn’t get it done in jan, but kept in contact and watched on… When it came clear of Bordeaux’s likely inability to complete the deal we stepped up and reenforced our interest. For once I actually feel we did a good job and we’re smart. The stuff they did between and jan and June will have helped massively…
I think we did well with Ahmedhodžić and agree it did seem we have to be in the clear on the Bordeaux option one way or another
To the point raised on Maupay, you have to decide what you want to do.
On one hand it was alluded Wilder didn't want to pay additional agent fees or the Prince wouldn't pay the wages.
But you set aside money and fees that were spent on players not fit for purpose and I don't see how other deals couldn't have still been possible.
Freeman was a complete waste and if a no 10 was only to become Plan B, then we could have kept Duffy for 1 year. We didn't need to spend 5m in fees and what, 20k in wages? 3 year deal and that's 8m.
Robinson was a total waste unless 3-4-3 or 4-3-3 was the formation. Surprised how intelligent minds couldn't figure this out before spending 6m in fee and same again, another 3m wage commitment? Throw in a million for the nonsensical water-to-wine punt on Morrison and you've 18m in the budget and scarcely impacting the XI at all. Are we really sure it was down to PA not paying the wages? Plus the 28k per week we wouldn't be paying McBurnie and the 20m we wouldn't be paying Swansea, we could have got Maupay.
Robinson wasn't so straightforward because we weren't ready to relegate Stevens to no 2 or offload him and we couldn't have our cake and eat it so paying 50k for a reserve made little sense. Cash was a different proposition. Villa in the PL is not something we could compete with. Much bigger club. Same with Watkins. But we knew about him. He wasn't plucked from obscurity. We could have moved sooner for him, same for Benhrama, for Jared Bowen, who was spoken about 12 months and more before West Ham went for him. You can add Toney in there. Before he went to Brentford there was a window for him. For whatever reason we decided to move differently.
Point is that if you have a budget you can only spend it once and if you spend it on multiple shite players who won't contribute then you won't have enough left for key performers. Maybe you sign less, in some cases you don't get Bogle, you keep Freeman but they are the calls and we got many of them wrong.
Maybe some will. Have a great season and provide some redemption to those dealings but they weren't fit for purpose for the needs at that time.