FanPost

Football Transfers – To know or not to know…

"Would you like to have prior knowledge about the player your team brings in or enjoy the thrill of having the unknown signed?"
Someone tweeted this the other day and it got me thinking: At the time, my initial thought was I would prefer to know the player, rather than blindly trusting the scouting team and manager to bring us the next rising star or someone to turn the season around. Surely my experience and knowledge of football trumps that of a professional Premier League Football Manager??? Although...The issue I think people have with knowing the player already is that they have preconceived ideas on them; rumours, current fans and the media will pull out ever stop to find something questionable or dubious surrounding the player and I wonder if it affects the player before they even have a chance to prove themselves on the pitch...or at the very least gives people a tinted view on their performances, mentality and prfessionalism. If however, the player comes from afar, yes France counts, we are still bound to have a background check posted all over the back pages, but since the media reports will be from overseas sources it allows us to put a slight doubt over their validity and receive the player with an open mind. This I think can be a good thing; take a player that has been under the media spot light and is underpeforming...a striker if you will who is judged purely on their ability to knock the ball in the net. A move overseas can often be a revival of a career. How many players have we seen at Chelsea, Manchester Utd or Man City where they have not quite cut it only to find them in the Champions League the following season and putting the English side out of the competition. Michu SwanseaGiuseppe Rossi is a prime example, made very little impact at Man United, but 54 goals at Villarreal and 6 for Italy. Or how about Michu. OK he was not a flop at his previous clubs, but he was drafted in from obscurity and made into one of the most popular players at Swansea plus one of the leading scorers this season. The media nor fans forced their demand for goals on him, but gave him an opportunity to impress and judge on the results. Compare that with Torres and a £50mill price tag, I think you get my point. And yet - While teams are willing to spend millions of pounds on unknown talent it will always put a shiver up many a fans spines who are paying ever increasing ticket prices, so can we blame a manager for signing a local player from a lower league with a proven track record?

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