Does anyone know how much a player will improve a team? teams can spend all they like but it doesn't mean the players bought will improve them, Look at City as an example, 50m on Stones 50m on Sterling, not exactly setting the world alight, you win some you lose some. As Mr Klopp says, "give me 11 players and we will be competitive" they haven't all got to be so called "stars".
Raheem Sterling finished the season with 10 goals and 21 assists. His finishing could use a lot of work though.
Stones was one that they bought because he was great on the ball, and paid through the nose because he was British. Anyone that had watched him play at Everton knew that he was a liability in defense....but City also needed homegrown players with UEFA mandating that you need 8 homegrown players; 4 of those being from the team itself.
Onto the original point, City had two right backs aged 34 and 32 who did not give the much last season, and both were out of contract. They needed replacing, and City have got arguably the best RB in the league last season, and another player who was highly rated before he joined Real Madrid; I do not know of anyone who can come in and say that that is a negative. You would have to be naive to think that.
Why did people want Salah, Keita, and Van Dijk? Because they had the potential to walk into the team and improve it; such is their skill set and performance level in their last season. I know of someone who said that the team ought to have been looking at him (Keita) last year before he moved to Leipzig.
Would there be some chemistry issues early on? For some players, yes, for some it is not something that is an issue.
When it comes to Paul Tomkins, I always think that his worked is riddled with errors, and this is something that he was called out on. You cannot come and take all big transfers and make a blanket statement that most big transfers do not work. Some teams manage to do well when it comes to spending big money, some tend to not do so well. It was the same thing that happened when he was questioned about the flaws about his index on inflation, and his assessment that wage bill theory.
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