You say that as if these players were forced upon us whereas we bought them of our own free will

I get the comment about having our fingers burnt with Benteke and Sakho but after ten seasons in the PL we shouldnt have just one recognised left back, two rights backs with a combined age of 70+, Luka should have been moved on ages ago along with sad to say it Jimmy Mac. Kayoute is a big loss in my opinion and the two no 9’s arent up to scratch. The academy may or may not produce any first teamers but this mess sits with Doug and Parish.

Some of the signings up PV have actually been quite good - Anderson and Guehi for example. However this summer is crucial and I’m not sure Doug or our scouting network is good enough. Maybe the new manager coming in might be able to pull a few rabbits out the bag…it will be very interesting and hopefully we’re still in the PL.

I agree, the talent market for pro footballers is worldwide these days and you do have to have that in place the networking necessary to identify such players. Both Brighton and Brentford have done this with less EPL experience than us and it has paid huge dividends for them. Only circa 30% of EPL players are now eligible to play for England, hence the reason Southgate has said it is now necessary to look at players in the lower league when seeking players for the England squad. I personally think that SP/DF have not been very good at all, at either succession planning or indeed in recruiting players of the required quality, yes on paper both Eze and Olise were at the right price but they are still very much work in progress and still have a lot to prove before we can say they have made the grade. The team balance currently is all wrong and contracts have been extended on players both in the past and currently who are either not EPL standard or are they are sick or lame. The money wasted on extending CB contract was scandalous and wasted circa 12.5m in salary payments when he had no value as a striker and nobody wanted him at any other elite club.

As for the academy, that is still very much work in progress and still has a lot to prove, it is not unique, it still has to prove its productivity and is certainly not going to be the silver bullet for the future that some seem to believe. That will always be the DOF who has a productive, worldwide networking system!

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Steve Parish has been at the helm whilst we have enjoyed 10 seasons in the PL.

Criticism as been laid at the door of our DOF but I would suggest that his 'Terms of Reference' are not widely known.His remit extends beyond the area of recruitment, and of course the club's transfer activity is constrained within financial parameters.

I'm not sure whey you keep bringing this back to remit. Nobody knows hies remit, but we know it involves transfers as his name is always mentioned.

But regardless, the macro point is that Parish employed Dougie, into arguably the most important back office role, with zero experience.

From the outside, I just find that a bit insane

Our turnover/income is substantially less than that of Chelsea.