To be fair, who are we talking about here with the new signings? Wirtz I'll give you. Aspas would bully this little worm. Frimpong is rapid. Kerkez and Isak have been good in the premier league. Ekitike is one of the few that has done well this season...
I think signing two big name strikers has brought some problems, but quality and depth is what we all would have wanted. Isak is one of the best strikers in the league. If not the world. The signing made sense.
I'm not letting the data nerds completely off the hook, but the majority of the blame is with the manager for overseeing such widespread regression.
In isolation, you can defend any of the signings. But in totality, we spent around 400 million, and none of them, except Ekitike, look particularly good. A big part lies with the manager. But there is also the fact that we don't have a single player in that 400 who can take the game and make a difference through sheer individual talent and willpower. You shouldn't be spending this much money on system players.
Frimpong may be rapid. But we are not in athletics, we play PL football. So far, he looks less of a PL right back than the great Calvin Ramsey, John Otsemobor, and Jon Flanagan. We spent money to find a poorer attacker and a poorer defender than Trent.
Isak - look at his goal compilations from last year? Do we really play like that? We don't put our strikers in situations that Eddie Howe put Isak in at Newcastle. He may be a great striker, but we haven't played with a classic number nine since Torres' days, except for the horrible Balotelli-Benteke experiment. And Torres was way more physical than Isak and had a lot to his game.
Kerkez - I am also perplexed. But he wouldn't be the first player to look classy with a lower-level team and unable to make the step up. Again, are we using him the same way Iraola used him? I don't know, as I barely watch other teams. But my guess would be no. He's definitely a poorer passer than Robbo and doesn't possess Robbo's playmaking abilities.
These are the kind of things that the data nerds should have picked up on. They are quick to take credit when things go well. What about when things do not go well?
They did it with Rodgers, with articles about how Rodgers bought Benteke against their advice. Great. How about Markovic, Moreno, and Aspas? Don't expect me to believe that Rodgers spent time scouting them?
A lot of articles over the last year about how Nunez was a Klopp signing, extensions where Klopp was using his influence? They did that knowing that Klopp was too classy to attack back in the press and took advantage of that?
They are good, don't get me wrong. But at the same time, someone should hold their feet to the fire for the summer outlay.