i know you're right about the fact that we could have signed an upcoming WC-player for 5 mio last season but let me say this; i think we should stop bitching and whining about these things; i mean seriously, last season we were in no position of spending 5 mio on someone who might as well screw up and cost us our season. Last summer, we were busy saving our asses and organizing our whole 'company'.
It's easy of course saying afterwards. Hell, we could also have bought cristiano ronaldo 20 years ago, when he started walking for like 3 action figurines.
I won't blame secco for not having signed hamsik. It's a gamble, and from all those 'promising' youngsters that are signed, only a small percentage really make an impact. We ARE active on the youngster-market (c.f. ekdahl) and i think our management is right in pointing to established class-players (amauri, alonso, ...) instead of starting a gamble now. Once we are back on top (nationally and internationally) we can start to sign tomorrow's agueros and ronaldos, because then, with a nearly fully-set team, we can 'throw out' the cash for those more 'gambled players'.
Honestly, saying now that secco should have signed him is easy. But if the question was 'not signing someone else and instead take hamsik', i bet the opinions would have differred much more back then.