Quote Originally Posted by -james- View Post
Those players were all elite for a decade or two before that, the fact that there is the occasional outlier who can carry on into their dotage doesn't really prove anything. Look at Liverpool turning to shit once half the team got the wrong side of thirty. There's an age curve, it's obvious why, on average, you'd want to buy players before they hit their peak.

I think Brighton not buying a striker for two or three seasons when every football ramble listener was shouting at them to do so sums them up. While I'm sure every other club in the league has an "analytics department" (probably one guy on half the wages of their third goalkeeper working 80 hours weeks), I don't think anyone has buy-in like Brighton (/Brentford) do. Good luck convincing the PFMs not to buy Lukaku if there's no structure to allow that to happen.
Yeah, what I meant was when you're at elite level (i.e. wanting to challenge for the English and European titles), it should be clear who the elite players are, and having a series of punts on young players is not the way to stay where you are.