Really? Are you going to hold it against me because I didn't say anything when I wasn't even a member here? Of course I would have advised against paying 37 million on someone like Benteke.

Look, for me, he was a great young striker at Genk and his first period at Villa. But the Benteke periods have to be divided in 2: before and after his achilles tendon rupture in April 2014.

2 years before that he had 40 goals and assists in 6100 minutes against Premier League opponents and for the Belgium national team.

The 2 years after the injury he had 30 goals and assists in 5000 minutes for Aston Villa and Liverpool and the national team.
And playing for Liverpool, forwards do actually have much better percentages than playing for mid-table teams, so I'll just round up this period after the injury to about 1 goals or assist every 200 minutes at top level.

You could already see a decrease in performance. He was an ok striker, but not one worthy of such an expediture. Perhaps a 10 million was more likely his right price for what he offered.

Considering we already had Dwight Gayle who was scoring around 200 minutes as wel, why get Benteke? Ok, you could argue that he;s a different type of striker, taller and could create spaces for others. But is he good at that? Even in Liverpool, they signalled him out as being slow. He was considered slow for a center forward who had to run and create spaces, taht's why he flopped there.

So yeah, I would have definitely brought up his injury and decrease in performance, which later accentuated after coming to Palace (even though you will claim a good first season, it was filled with penalty goals and a lot of playing time to reach those numbers).

I talked about every new recruit and their price since becoming a memeber here. Was I wrong?

I said Townsend is worth the money when everybody was bashing him.

I said Tomkins is worth the money when he wasn;t even playing.

I said PVA will be a great signing, even for that money, as it weakens a relegation comeptitor (Sunderland) of their best assister in that season. And Sunderland went down after selling PVA, he scored against them in the direct match.

I said Jordan Ayew is not good enough to play as a striker in the PL based on his perfomance for Swansea in the last seasons when he played mostly in a central striker role and not as a winger. His around 12 million buy-option is ridiculous and some other player we could have gotten on loan could have helped more.

You can only hold me for saying that I think Luka Milivojevic might be too slow for the Premier League and I wouldn't pay 13.5 million to get him from Olympiacos. Yeah, I admit saying it and I don;t backtrack even though he;s made captain and a fan favourite. But he's not that good a goalscorer as you make him as other players get penalties and he just converts them. And defensively he has had his slip-ups with Manchester United at home last year and in other matches, but ok, he's a good player, I have been wrong about him.

I joined but I wasn't active. After i joined I think I only came back after about 6-7 months. And yes, I said Benteke for that much money was a mistake from the first minute I posted here.

It’s nothing personal, but if someone says that they said something and claim to have been proved right, then I always think it is important that they did actually say whatever it is they claim to have said, in the context they claim to have said it.

If that makes me a pedant then so be it.

Edited by dp (25 Jan 2019 8.11pm)

Fine. Sorry to have derailed a thread about us signing Gayle.

No offence intended at all. You don’t need to prove yourself to me. Quite the opposite infact. I have previously said how talented I think you are and if I could get you to accept that you are not always (but often) right and that others opinions are worthy of taking into account then you would be highly investable.

However, sorry for being annoying, it wasn’t intentional. I won’t outstay my welcome.