Quote Originally Posted by dml1954 View Post
So you don't really know what the fee was or how much he earns. The length of contract means very little nowadays anyway. I actually agree with you in terms of Bacunas position in the team. I wouldn't have him in any team that I picked because to me he is lazy and gets caught out of position too often. That isn't down to his lack of ability, its his attitude on the pitch. That is something that you only find out when he is at the club unfortunately. Every player signed is a gamble to some extent. Some come off, others don't. As to your attitude to Warnock, you don't have to like him but to engage in snide remarks and direct insults is childish in the extreme and very disrespectful to a man who picked the club up by its bootstraps, connected the club to the fans for the first time in years and took us to the Premier League on a shoestring budget within 18 months. Something that I will never forget anyway.
Hang on a sec, if you're not willing to accept the widely reported fee we paid for Bacuna, how can you claim that Warnock only had a "shoestring" budget in 17/18? How do you know that? It seems to me that any manager who can afford to make a signing like Gary Madine (with his reported fee of £6 million) is hardly operating on a shoestring budget.

As mentioned earlier in this thread, Warnock was very good at a certain type of signing (Bosmans, usually from lower division clubs) and woeful when it came to players bought for significant fees and when he did sign one who has been a regular in the Premiership this season, he kept on leaving him out!

As for Bacuna, I think that, if he was really seen as a replacement for Gunnarsson, he's been a poor one because he has little of the tactical discipline that Gunnar did and he certainly doesn't possess the same leadership qualities. I do feel sorry for him this season though because he's been shifted around from pillar to post. He was struggling at right back in Neil Harris' latter days here and I'm not convinced by him as an attacking player - for me, his stamina and running power makes him a natural box to box midfielder and I agree that he might be worth a try as a right wing back.