You look at the purchase of the likes of Fazio, Stambouli, Davies, Chadli, Chiriches, Yedlin etc. and have to wonder what's the point? Also, let me clarify these guys might turn out to be very good but they were bought at the time as depth players. None of them hit the ground running and while they were all sub around 10m or less, they are probably on decently substantial wages. Those fees and wages add up and you have wonder if that money could have been used to lure one or two bigger talents as opposed to a bunch of depth that could have been filled by low wage academy players.
Would it really been so much worse to give the likes of Veljkovic, Oglivie, Carroll, Onomah, Pritchard, Oduwa, Fredericks, Winks, Ball, etc the chance to fill those back up roles. So far all of Townsend, Bentaleb, Kane, Mason Carroll, Caulker, and Livermore showed that they were at of the quality necessary to be backs up here. Plus, they almost all showed huge enthusiasm for the club which will likely manifest into leadership as they age.
Maybe the answer is just that our academy players are still a little too young. Our u21s are playing almost no one over 19 which is very rare. However, going forward if we sell off the likes of Paulinho, Chiriches, Dembele, Lennon, or any other non-starters, I think our youth players should get the chance to fill their spot. By having cheap back ups, it will allow us to invest more heavily into the starting 11 and bring real talent in rather than just a group of average players. Plus, having a home grown core would be great of the club. Worst comes to worst, they come in and play for a little while and we can sell them for substantial fees
Putting more faith in our youngsters will not only be good for the mentality and desire in the team but also in freeing up money for our top end transfer activity. It just makes sense economically. It is an effective way for us as a smaller sized financial team to cut some corners in terms of spending. Plus, do our prospects really change at all if Veljkovic had Chiriches's spot, Pritchard had Lennon's, Onomah in Paulinho's, Carroll's in Dembele's? We have players on low wages who are dying to break into the team and prove themselves. They need to be utilized better as depth options and it will benefit the club and squad as a whole.
