Why do we always sign obscure players?

[Syd Cupp]

I forgot Gordon Davies from Merthyr Tydfil

[The Rock]

Most clubs do this. Swansea paid 2m for some nobody called Michu which seemed to turn out all right. I have generally liked our scouting though I thought the players that came in under Roy when we were uncovering nobody's were a lot better than the "Class of Sanchez" and "Class of Jol". We can only hope that the "Class of Magath" is more like Roy's and that the players are 21 year old diamonds in the rough from some obscure Division 2 team by some fishing village on the north sea.

[FPT]

I wasn't going to get involved with this debate, but it's Sunday and nothing else is going on.

Players that are "known" are known for a reason, chances are, multiple clubs are looking at the same players which drives up the price. If you can find a diamond in some random country, then job done.

We have scouts all over the world, that's a good thing, sometimes you buy players that are on your radar - albeit on the outer regions of it - because they'll plug a gap in your squad for a small fee and cheap wages, like Elsad Zverotic.

A lot of the Scandinavian's that Roy Hodgson brought in (Stoor, Elm and Kallio) were squad fillers. At the point of signing, Fredrik Stoor was set to be our starting right back but for John Pantsil's form there. Others like Nevland and Hangeland done a very good job.

I don't understand your issue with spending a small amount on a player that has performed well in another country, it's like the argument of "Ronaldo is better than Messi because he's done it in two countries."

Marcel Gecov for example, was in the "Team of the Tournament" for the 2011 U21 European Championship along with Christian Eriksen, Javi Martinez, Thiago Alcantara, Juan Mata and Daniel Sturridge. Now I don't know whether we brought him on the back of that tournament or not, but that's very promising none-the-less.

At the stage that we were in during Al Fayed's final 5-6 years, we were trying to pick up gems for nothing and sometimes it worked - Dembele and Hangeland - and sometimes it didn't - Stoor, Kallio and Zverotic.

Also, it depends on what your definition of obscure is, many would never have heard of Boa Morte when we brought him in, or Malbranque, or Hangeland, or Dembele, or Dempsey, or Bouba Diop, or Saha.

Some players do superbly well in another country, like Bryan Ruiz, but struggle to transfer it to England. Other players come to England unknown and settle in, like Brede Hangeland. Even some players join a bigger team and relish the higher quality of coaching, you could use Chris Smalling as an example of this... He wouldn't be playing for Manchester United if he had stayed at Maidstone.

[Admin]

Slightly off topic, but Bony from Swansea (before he went) was the signing we should have made. Whilst we were dicking around with the likes of Bent, Berbatov, Ruiz etc, I thought to myself why the hell aren't we in for this guy? Think he cost 8 million and had everything.

[FPT]

Slightly off topic, but Bony from Swansea (before he went) was the signing we should have made. Whilst we were dicking around with the likes of Bent, Berbatov, Ruiz etc, I thought to myself why the hell aren't we in for this guy? Think he cost 8 million and had everything.

£12m, but I agree. We were heavily linked, I can find newspaper rumours going all the way back to 2011. Bony kept Swansea up this season.