RodneySAFC
Winger
Let's be fair to Piennar, he's looked decent at times, certainly not first 11 quality but a good squad player, plenty of experience and knows Moyes well, it was a decent signing on those grounds, so not one to moan about. Ndong looks good, but once again, partly due to injuries and partly due to poor recruitment, we don't have a midfield to support him. M'Vila managed to show his class all season last year when we were lacking in numbers and quality, Ndong isn't as good as M'Vila, but he's capable and youthful, alongside Catts and Kirch, Ndong will look ok given time to settle, right now he's being asked to do too much with too little support. The rest of our summer recruitment is the issue mind. McNair could be ok, versatile and young and a current international, bit too expensive in my view, but then again EVERY signing has been expensive this summer. Januzaj is the poorest signing we have made for years, he's up there with Graham for me, totally the wrong player at totally the wrong time.I don't think that's the problem though, we signed 3/4 for decent money and brought in squad fillers like Pienaar and Anichebe. Unfortunately neither the money signings or the fillers have improved us much if at all.
Had we managed to keep the squad fit and settled we'd be doing ok, we'd probably have 5-6 points, not fantastic but decent enough. Injuries and under financing the recruitment has been the biggest issues for me. You cannot buy 10 players, 3-4 of whom will cost 8 figures a piece, AND bring in 5 squad players for just £27M, ESPECIALLY not this summer when prices went through the roof thanks to the new TV deal. The fact the board expected we could just spend the same amount we have done(mostly) for the past few seasons shows just how incompetent they have been, Bain wouldn't have had the ability to change the budget this summer, not by too much anyway.
Impossible for Moyes to not go for numbers. Imagine we signed the 3-5 'quality players' but still had the same level of injuries, we'd literally have between 9 and 11 fit first 11 players. Granted we aren't much better off currently, but at least we can put a bench out.Instead of focusing on volume Moyes needed to focus on smaller numbers and quality. The youth players would have been good enough as squad fillers.
Allardyce bought well on a shoestring in the last window while in a dog fight. I understand Moyes didn't have that much time but he couldn't do the same.