As I've said previously I think some of this is explained

by thinking players would leave who didn't. I don't think we'd have bought Canos without a pretty strong view that Brady would be off, for example. As it turned out he stayed (good! - but what, now, is Canos for?). But if he'd gone and we didn't have a winger ready to take over we'd all have said, how s**t is our recruitment, we let Brady go with no replacement (remember, at the time the Murphs hadn't quite stepped up in the way they now have).

Similarly, Pritchard was an ideal choice given that both Naismith and Brady were looking to be off as he can play both roles very well. But Naismith also stayed and played well enough at Everton that he's now ahead of Pritch as Wes's understudy.

I'm not saying it's all perfect - we do have chronic oversupply in some areas of the pitch and undersupply in others (striker, CB in particular) - but at least a good part of the summer's business is understandable.

Posted By: Old Man, Sep 29, 11:34:02