Bloody hell. Had to check as my head said that he played for us about 5 years before that and that he was also a bit of a stalwart - albeit limited. He was indeed signed in 2014 and only ever made 20 apps for us over three years!
But that is the problem with Werner. He's just backup but so are the youngsters. The benefit of the youngsters is they're still getting better though so could replace Son or Johnson. We really needed a proper first choice to either replace Son or Johnson depending on form. As soon as one is out we have Werner who isn't good enough to start and Moore or Odobert who are still very raw. Ideally Son would be the Werner more experienced option and we have another early to mid 20s player in place of Werner.
Wouldn’t expect him back for a good few months after hamstring surgery
Who says we needed hit the ground first team players? We changed from a win now approach to more of a development philosophy. Signing young players who can CONTRIBUTE now but who will only be world beaters (if they fulfill their potential) in a few years.
The strategy is clear is it? Solanke, although is quality, is 27.
The strategy is not we will never sign anyone proven. We also tried hard for Neto. But the dial has been turned towards the future as the primary emphasis.
To be fair we do have a win now manager. It's another case of the transfer policy not matching the manager.
I get the signing of young players, I get it. But there is no guarantee they are going to develop into first team players is there? The club, fans & players need to win games now or Ange will be gone and possibly a good amount of the current squad won't match the next poor bastard that is appointed's tactics!
TBH 'hit the ground running first team players' are needed in every summer window to maintain the team's competitiveness, but I have never seen us sign one. There are only two types of players we will sign - 1. youngsters with potential with high future sellable value or 2. bargain purchase. We were competitive in recent years because we were lucky to have Kane coming through our academy and Sonny became a world class player. Liverpool and Scum had their bad times but then their owners were ambitious enough to spend on star players and they become title contenders again. Levy would just sign inferior players with less money and hope them would become world class and bring him CL money to make profits. When things do not go well the manager would be sacrificed to cover his incompetence.
there isn't a single manager would match Levy's transfer policy if he is ambitious enough
Werner is a short term option to allow these younger players to develop as Son winds down. And as mentioned above Son is actually first choice on LW.
The point is we didn't need a short term option. We needed a first choice one. Not write off a season while we wait to see if youngsters come good which may or may not even happen. Son is past his best and Johnson hasn't shown consistency since he arrived.
A young developing manager would work best. That what we had with Poch and it worked well. It only ended because we stopped signing players. It's the old school managers that need experienced players who don't suit Levy (Ange, Jose, Conte). All these managers want instant success and we're going the long route.
More relevant I think is what have they won? 1 FA Cup early into the project. I'm not sure why arsenal are used as an example. They're essentially doing exactly what we did under Poch. Come close but ultimately fall short of the top prize. What fans are asking for is more than top 4 and so far we've never made it to that point in the Premier League era. We either go back to what worked under Poch and hope we have another top generation of players break through. That still fell short in the end. Or we actually sign some top players too this time which we've never tried.
