Claudius wrote:
deardevil wrote:
Choosing Pepe over Zaha will end up being one of the definitive transfers of the Emery era. There's always an element of luck when you're deciding between two similar talents. You just never know which way the chips will fall. In 2004, we bought Gilberto Silva whilst United bought Kleberson. One was a resounding success and the other was a complete and utter flop. In the same year, Liverpool thought they had stolen a march on their rivals by buying the next elite French striker in Djibril Cisse.
The question is were we ever serious about Zaha? Did we ever bid for him and if we did the did we only use him as a decoy while we pursued his higher upside countryman?
It also makes sense to view Pepe in the context of our broader business. Together with Guendouzi, Torreira, Leno, (and Tierney, Ceballos) it signals a desire to build a team that can challenge for the top four for several years. We have already moved away from the Gazidis-Wenger retirement home.
If I had to guess based on the timeline and what we know (Zaha bid 1st July, Pepe bid 13th July), I'd say we wanted Zaha but when it became evident that Palace wanted £80m+, we figured if we're going to stretch our budget to that extent we may as well go for Pepe.
The impression I get is that Emery insisted on a top winger one way or the other though.
