Clearly its less risky to buy a player who has previously played in PL, but they are not always available at a sensible price.
I don't think we are going to sign a PL proven 20 g/a attacker. Apart from anything else, there aren't that many of them (another reason I will be amazed if Bergwijn turns out to be one).
But my point is that him doing it in the Eredivisie is not transferable to the PL as a comparison stat.
But the Dutch league do have a few decent teams, such as Ajax, who we could/should have watched him against, whilst he has also played against England for Netherlands which we should have watched as well so knew he could cope with those PL players, and he played for PSV against Spurs...and indeed other CL matches.
I acknowledged that he will be playing 2/3 other decent teams, but the rest are pretty fucking ropey. Nowhere near PL level, some not even championship level, so that's why I'm saying those stats need to be qualified and can't be used to compare purely with PL stats. They are not useless, clearly they tell us something, but like I said, lets see if he can reproduce this playing better teams in the PL over a season so we have a real comparison with current players.
So I'd suggest we had decent grounds for thinking he could play against PL class teams - and think his early form of 3 goals in 6 PL games plus he was close to that assist if Son had scored on Friday suggests he will make it as a PL player.
How did he do against us ? Because I thought he was pretty shit against us, certainly don't remember anyone raving about him after those games. I was at one of them, and I barely remember him doing anything of note.
I'm sure someone at Spurs did have grounds for thinking he'd be worth signing, but then someone at the club always has grounds for thinking the signings we make are worth signing, doesn't make them good signings does it.
I just said having watched him, I wouldn't paid 27m (30m Eur) for him, I would rather have spent less on Eze - having watched both of them.
Having watched Stengs and AZ, I would definitely have rather spent less (or the same) on him than Bergwijn.
Had Eze been available in January, which he was not, and pre-covid I suspect he would certainly have cost £20m+ for a player with just Championship experience, and no CL or international experience (both useful guides to how good they are)…….but post covid with QPR needing to raise cash and Eze with only a year left, there is a deal to be done, and the rumours of a players plus cash deal sound good.
There you go then, 20m for Eze verses 27m for Bergwijn in January. I would have gone with the 7m cheaper, one year younger, HG Eze. My opinion. Others available.
