In an ideal world it would have been brilliant if we could have signed those players but they were the constraints he was working under.
We know Alves was probably signed as a gift from the Chairman but I'm sure some of those signings will have been Southgate's, and was the decision to sell Boateng, Cattermole and Rochemback and replace them with Digard Southgates, or the clubs'?
Why did Middlesbrough get relegated? Poor recruitment.
Mido was a carcrash and Alves couldn't come up with the goods. (pretty much)
Mido £6m
Steven Fletcher was recommended to Boro for £1m by Mark Proctor summer 2007 we turned our noses up and went instead for Mido
Alves £12m (which was more like £3.5m ) January 2008
Ross McCormack was recommended to Boro for £300k by Mark Proctor
Letting James Morrison go for £1.5m and bringing in Jérémie Aliadière was a bit of a whoopsie imo.. although seeing Aliadiere and Tuncay up top for us was probably some of the best football I saw us play that season.
Downing was promised we would bring in a certain quality of player in the summer (Defour, Wiesel etc) and it didn't happen.
Summer 2008
Mark Schwarzer for Charles Itandje - messed up the transfer (boro wanted him on loan) we stuck with Turnbull and Jones
Luke Young for Gretar Steinsson - baulked at the £4m transfer so spent £3.5m on Justin Hoyte
Lee Cattermole for Graham Dorrans - turned our noses up (Mark Proctor recommendation £100k) went for Didier Digard £4m
Fabio Rochenback for - Charlie Adam turned our noses up (Mark Proctor recommendation £500k) went for Marvin Emnes £3.2m
Would Dorrans and Adam have been up to the job.. would our players at the time
January 2009 We were preparing a £2.5m offer for Steven Fletcher based on the money we were due on the sale of Stewart Downing to Spurs £7m which the bank wouldn't let us spend on players including: Ben Watson £2m & Nemanja Matić £1m Charlie Adam £500k Charles Itandje £1m
We hadn't really replaced George Boateng and lacked that extra bit of steel of grit that the likes of James Morrison, Gretar Steinsson, Graham Dorrans, Charlie Adam would have brought to the team.
I agree with Downing that the players brought in were not Gareth Southgate's players.
Does this side get relegated 2009 in the premier league? That back four is ROCK HARD!
------------------Itandje---------------
Steinsson--Huth--Wheater--Pogatetz
----O'Neil--Dorrans--Arca--Adam----
-----------Aliadiere--Tuncay-----------
Subs:
B. Jones
A, Taylor
M. Bates
N. Matic
A. Johnson
R. McCormack
S. Fletcher