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Fair enough. Not sure I agree with all that you've said so we'll just agree to disagree. I can certainly see where you're coming from but to me some of your posts are just contradictory.
It seems to me that you're suggesting that we should've strengthened our midfield position because a number of players had proven themselves unreliable through recurrent injuries by the beginning of last season. That sounds like a reaction to the situation at hand after it has already occurred which is, by definition, acting in hindsight. Even so, if you were to say that their unreliability at that point should've been considered as future permanent unreliability and we should have done something about it, I'm not sure that's very reasonable - for the reason that I provided which is that plenty of players have struggled with injuries for a period and then gone on to play reasonably consistently. Ings and Lallana are pretty good examples.
I don't doubt that we play high intensity football and that has an impact on players playing year in year out with our hectic schedule, but how does that relate to players who have spent a lot of time on the treatment table? They haven't been playing, so you can't argue that things have been too strenuous for them. If it's saying that this playing style necessarily generates more injuries and therefore we should just have a bigger squad preemptively, well that hasn't been justified through a period of sustained success where, barring last season which was a freak occurrence with our CBs, we have been just fine with the size of our squad.
I think that when we were at the top (ie after winning the CL and then EPL) there weren't huge calls to bring in a world class midfielder. IIRC there were calls to get in some cover for Robbo and Trent, and some cover for the front 3. We got Kostas and Jota in and although Kostas didn't feature much last season, Jota was pretty good. I'm pretty sure the discussion points around CM position were that both Naby and Ox would seemingly return from their injuries and the glimpses we had seen from them prior warranted giving them a fair crack to reestablish themselves after injuries. There would be, after all, no guarantee that any replacement we got wouldn't have similar issues anyway and so it'd be a risk and big outlay as well. In any case, we didn't spend big and instead brought in a world class midfielder (Thiago) on a pretty good deal, who had some abilities that we perhaps weren't getting out of our regular midfield. The player was also of a level of development and age that he would likely make an immediate impact but unlikely to stunt the progression of our young prospects. So, in this sense, Kostas, Jota and Thiago were arrivals that strengthened the squad in pretty much the areas that the team was perhaps needing it. 2 out of 3 signings have been largely excellent and 1 perhaps had his season spoiled by injury.
You say that Thiago was carrying a long term injury but he had played plenty of games for Bayern the 4 seasons before that and had been instrumental in their winning the Champions League before we signed him. He came into the team pretty much as soon as we signed him, and then IIRC, got COVID so missed some games for that and then got his knee injury from a terrible tackle and missed a long period after that. None of that was predictable based on what happened at Bayern, or because of our playing style. Would you be saying that he wasn't the right signing and we only got him because we got him cheaply if the Richarlison tackle never happened ? I doubt it.
In terms of recruitment, on the one hand you are extolling the virtues and capabilities of our recruitment team, but then one the other hand seem to suggesting that the problems we have with various recruits were all foreseeable to some extent, which would seem to be inconsistent with the level of capability you are suggesting (ie by definition, a capable recruitment team would not sign players that would likely continually break down, and foresee those that had started along such a path and immediately source a replacement).
I agree in general that it is possible to bring in the right profile of player without breaking the bank. Indeed, we have done just that (with the exception of perhaps Ali and VVD). But then you suggest that we got a bunch of players 'on the cheap' because the owners didn't want to spend. However, those players have largely been exactly the right type of signings (i.e. Jota, Tsimikas, Konate). So what was the alternative for such players? Get more expensive players (i.e. break the bank a bit more?)
n terms of midfield, from what you say it sounds like after we won the league, we should have signed a top class midfielder without breaking the bank. The recruitment team knew this and tried to do this but weren't permitted to do so by the owners. However, as it turns out we did brought in Thiago who is a top player, and promoted 2 youth talents who would have a chance to develop alongside a top player. We just got unlucky because the top player got injured early on from a bad tackle, and one of the young talents was also really unlucky with a terrible injury.
Nowhere in your spiel have you suggested that we should have just re-signed Gini, which I think with his great record, was probably the only thing that we should've done. The reasons for that are entirely unclear, and I'm not sure we can just put that down to the owners being a bit tight with cash.