Virgil van Dijk

Lenny signed Johansen.

 

Not at stromsgodset he never..

 

Denayer never played for Stormgodset then :icon_mrgreen:

 

I got the thinking behind Pukki, his record in the Bundesliga for minutes actually played to goals scored was good, he was considered talented enough to be on Sevilla's books while you gee and to earn a move to Schalke. His one season in a lower league as a main striker he done quite well and most of all, he was waaaay down the list of players we actually wanted to sign.

It was a gamble on somebody who has been considered talented to see if we could bring that out in him. It didn't work.

Sometimes that'll happen with the position we are in as a club.

 

Ronny spotting talent is relevant throughout his short career, trigger happy:bbpd:

 

He's also sogned Berget twice in his career

 

His best goal return for a season was 11 when we signed him mate, and that was playing in Finland for HJK.

 

Aye but loaned him here, as a get it up you to pedro that we needed funds. Punted him and brought Armstrong and GMS in. Ronny's not just a pretty face:icon_mrgreen:

 

I think the thinking behind Pukki and Balde was that our top targets didn't want to come and they were sadly the best investment opportunity we had for the striking position that summer.

We're in a much stronger position now, though. Since that summer Vic and Forster have gone on to do will in the EPL with Virgil about to do likewise and Bitton looking a good prospect to follow suit. Also good young players will have noticed that Man City trusted us to develop one of their top young prospects for a season (hopefully two!). As long as we qualify for the CL, we are a much more attractive proposition now for top young players looking for a stepping stone to one of the big 4 leagues, especially England. I fully expect us to invest in a higher quality of player than Pukki or Balde this season.

I think we can really see progress being made, now. A lot of Lenny and Mjällby's hard work from years ago has now borne fruit and Deila seems similarly hard-working when it comes to developing players.

We don't buy flowers anymore, we buy seeds and sell the resulting flowers. This means we won't see where we are now in terms of our progress until 2 or 3 years from now. That season after Vic left looked, at the time, like a step backwards because the team got so much weaker, but now we can see that we were continuing our slow but steady progress and are in a stronger position to buy better-quality seeds now.

Sorry for the lame analogy.

 

I'm pretty sure the summer we signed Balde & Pukki, Johnny Russell went for 750k to Derby. Someone who was right under our nose. I know who I would rather have signed at the time. I still can't believe we didn't sign Russell to be honest.

 

I don't know that Russell is any better than Pukki TBH. He pulling up the Championship?

Scottish players cost less and also sell for less, so I'm really not at all sure that he was a better investment prospect at the time. Balde was just a gamble: his physical stats made him worth a punt but it didn't work out. Sometimes if the potential gains are massive, it's worth the occasional long shot.

 

I think balde was a buy they hoped would grow into a good striker as they did say he was a project.
But pukki was a panic buy,we got a knock back from a few strikers and ended up buying pukki who was called in the media at the time our 4rth choice.

Im hoping with ronny buying armstrong and gms in the jan window its the end of the panic last day of the window summer signings for the cl.

 

I know who I would rather have had in the Celtic team anyway, and I know who I would rather have now. He has done very well in the Championship, better than what Pukki done here, in a poorer league in my opinion. Russell would be ideal in our current as well in my opinion. Not as the lone striker right enough.

I actually understood the signing of Balde more than Pukki to be honest. He offered something totally different in the face of it, and a big powerful striker was something a lot of fans spoke about for years, since Hesselink's departure, but even after watching Balde for a game or two, you could see how poor a footballer he really was. His first touch was a tackle, and he was just very clumsy.

 

I think with Berget he just wanted an ally in the dressing room TBH. With Wakaso and Tonev, Ronny had said immediately that he desperately needed wingers and the club gambled on reaching the CL before buying. In hindsight this was a bad error but it is understandable because the best players will often only come if we can offer CL football. After we were put out (twice), loan deals for those two was the best we could do in the remaining time and without the CL carrot to dangle.

 

I'll take your word for it that Russell has turned out to be the better player, then. I haven't really seen them much. I'm still not convinced that Pukki wasn't the better investment prospect at the time, though.

 

Was 13 league goals in 25 league games, not sure about cups etc. better than 1 in 2.

Like I said though, definitely a gamble. He wasn't a priority, he was a player way down the list.

 

I wanted Russell at the time to be fair but I can still see the logic behind buying Pukki.

I still think there's a player in there somewhere, just seems fragile as * mentally though.

 

Devlin, do you agree that, understandable though that was, we are in a position to attract better this summer with Forster and Wanyama doing well in England, Virgil soon to follow them and Man City trusting us with Denayer's development?

 

No, I don't. It helps but the fact that we were fresh put of the last 16 was a major bonus and the reason we could attract players like Van Dijk and Boerrigter.

Even though Boerrigter hasn't worked out well I can't remember the last time we were in a strong enough position to buy a player who played over 40 games that season for a regular Champions League side, including all their Champions League games or a player who had just made team of the year in a much stromger league than ours, a real up and coming top defender in Van Dijk.