I don't accept that loads of teams recruit loads of better strikers than us.

Certainly not Palace - their top scorer last year was Mateta with 12, the year before that Mateta with 14 and 16 the year before that.

He cost £11m in 20/21 season. In his first 3 seasons he got 1, 7 and 2 goals.

Using another example, as I've pointed out a few times on here, for every 1 good'un Brighton or Bournemouth sign they often sign 1 or 2 duds too, or players who are still in development years down the line.

It feels like many hold out only their successes and expect us to replicate that bit and secure a 20+ a season striker but without their "wastage".

Their scouts and systems are as well paid, or better, than ours. However, they can make mistakes because of a historic trading profit and 1 in 3 coming good. Because of where we are after years of no spending at all, it feels like all ours need to be excellent or someone isn't doing their job, whereas the clubs that make mistakes, are, apparently

To make good my point, last year Bournmouth signed:
- Bafodé Diakité — £29.92m - Centre back, played 18 games last season.
- Djordje Petrovic — £24.71m - GK, ever present
- Rayan — £24.36m - forward - 15 games, 5 goals
- Ben Gannon-Doak — £19.83m - winger 8 games, 0 goals
- Amine Adli — £17.95m - forward - 31 games 3 goals
- Veljko Milosavljevic — £12.82m - Centre back, played 7 games last season
- Adrien Truffert — £11.54m - left back, 38 games 1 goal

That's a £70m outlay nearly.

None of them appear to be the level of Evanlison who they paid £40m for (Rayan might be, but he may have had a decent half-season too and he doesn't reach that level again (think Jelavic as someone who looked good for half a season only)).

Since him they've also signed (in forward positions):
Luis Sinisterra - £20m, a forward who left for Cruzerio on loan after 12 games and 1 goal
Hamed Traoré - £25m a left winger/forward who they sold for £7m after 4 games and no goals for them.

You can do the same for Brighton and others too. I think sometimes (not you / just you) people only remember the £24m winger Rayan and think "god he looks good" and forget the £45m on Sinisterra and Traoré.


However, you can give our scouts as much shit on the right back situation as you want... there's no excuse for that!!