I've lost count of the number of next big things we have signed over the years. Bostock was supposed to be the dogs. That orange bloke at Palace went nuts when we signed him. He disappeared and was never seen again. Every year we seem to sign somebody with huge potential only for them to loiter about wasting their careers in our reserves or on loan to some God forsaken outpost in the lower leagues or QPR. The question I guess is is it our system that stymies their development or some character flaw in the player that should have been spotted before we wasted our money.
It can only be the sum of 3 things as I see it.
1. The scouts, whose job it is to find new players, and bring them to the managers attention.
2. The manager, who's job it is to already have a plan of which type of players he needs to achieve his goals, and then to be fully certain that any players he looks at, are looked at thoroughly over a period of games, not just a 10 minute video clip.
3. Levy and the board to back the managers judgement, something that has not always been the case.
All clubs make mistakes with the players they bring in, its just that we seem to make more than most.
I have lots of confidence in AVB in this department, and lets hope that Levy does too. The next 6 weeks or so will be interesting.