Yeah I agree with that, imagine having them both
To be fair, I'm not that miffed that we didn't spend the money now, but I was miffed at the time. At least I'm now 100% certain that I wasn't wrong to say he was worth the money though, he's worth more now. This was one of my points, it doesn't matter what you spend, if the asset is appreciating, and clearly, at the level you need.
Not getting Gyokeres has led to a few things happening though, and hard to say exactly where we would be now, had we had him.
If we had Gyokeres, we would have more points at the start, and maybe more than we do now, but that might not have led to us getting Carrick, who has got more out of the team than Wilder, and is certainly more forward-thinking, in a different way. Not really blaming Wilder either mind, I still think we were robbed with our points haul early on, we deserved far, far more, and had we had more we would have had more confidence and that's what killed us. Wilder didn't know how to recover from that, and who would have thought a weak midfield 3 could turn into a strong midfield two, with a player we never used, crazy.
Maybe if we got Gyokeres he would have gone in the 10 role though, and we might have missed out on the Chuba resurgence, but if we had both they could have rotated that 9 and 10, and caused havoc.
Sure, getting Wilder out got Hackney in, which was an inexcusable miss from Wilder, now I've seen Hackney play. I didn't think Wilder could make a mistake that bad.
Forss has been as good as I expected, but in a different way (less goals, but a better player)
I thought Muniz was a good player, but confidence seemed to kill him
I didn't expect we would get Archer, I hadn't even heard of him, and didn't realise how good he was
Giles has been great, preferred him in wing back, but I get that we have to sacrifice that, to play how we do now. There might be better options for a left back though, so we might not try and keep him.
Barlaser will be an incredible signing at 500k, him and Hackney in the middle is probably our future midfield till one of them gets stolen, if we stay in the champ. We will need a better starter for the prem though, at least for first prem season, if we get and stay there.
Lenihan has been great, I thought he was going to be our best centre back, and still think that's the case.
Overall can't really fault our transfers, for what we've spent and if we can hold onto the loans (Giles/ Archer), or even get better then we're on really solid ground.
I can't fault our manager progression either:
Pulis had a rebuild on, not sure I liked how he did it with Pulisball, but Traore was worth it
Woody had to rebuild with worse players, take over from pulisball and no Traore, difficult.
Warnock moved us on, more rebuilding
Wilder did really well when he came in, but had a nightmare when our confidence dropped this year, overall got us into a better place team wise though
Leo did ok, getting Hackney in was a great move
Carrick has done wonders for confidence, and playing attractive football will really help us recruit good players/ good footballers.
Even if we don't go up, we're going to be incredibly strong next year, and should be on great financial footing (compared to everyone other than the prem teams coming down), but if the league stays how it is we will do Watford over two legs and would be too much for Sunderland or Luton in a final.
It's all looking good.