French/Polish, signed for £1.6m. I was expecting him to be incredible coming in off the right hand side as an inside forward but he was a bit crap until near the end of the season.
Our other need near the top was an AMC, £2.6m felt like a good deal for him but he disappears a lot in matches it seems.
We needed a backup keeper, £200k was decent business.
Free transfer, he was my 4th or 5th choice RB/LB but in the Summer it seemed that almost everyone would reject us to stay at their club or choose to move to another bidder.
£575k. Maybe a touch too much for him but I was struggling to bring in players. He's a big boy and I thought that would help at CB.
Spent last year on loan at us as a backup option and he came in for just £120k to do the same.
£450k to be our starting CB, physicals aren't amazing but he's decent on the ball.
£750k. When he came in I was excited, we had finally found someone of quality who chose to come to us (quite a few were in for him) but he was a bit of a letdown. Hopefully he kicks on next season.
I was starting to get a bit desperate. There wasn't a great deal of money left and by this time in August we had 11 players in the first team so I started signing free players who could be registered as backups.
This guy was signed in between the crap though, he's a fairly decent CDM and was a key player. Really happy with him.
Crap backup.
Crap backup who actually has some potential. I think the other crap backups will likely be sold for peanuts/their contracts expire but he could at least sell for something if he comes good.
£1m which was pretty much the last of my cash. He provided backup at AML and AMC, I think he could be really good for us.
Crap cheap backup.
Backup.
Now we get into the real quality. In January my scouts found this guy (and his friend below at Escorpiones in Costa Rica) and he was available for just £30k. I was quite a bit over my wage budget and despite having cash to spend my board wouldn't increase the wages or let me put money into the budget. As such I started loaning out some of the crap backups and I sold Elorza This guy came in with a huge value and it took him a couple of games to settle but he ended the season as our top scorer. When I got budgets for next season I gave him a new contract which upped his release clause from £16.25m to £80m.
His mate who cost just £59k. A lot more raw than Sanchez but he's got bags of potential.
Out of money and wages but I was able to convince the board to buy this guy for me. Think he could be really good for us.