I was reading a blog by someone on Twitter last night saying Liverpool fans are obsessed with foreign players, so much so, they'd instantly pick foreign players over British/Premier League players, an example of this being 90% of fans want Mata over Downing, where he believed people just dismissed Downing as average, when, in reality, he was a good player who will definitely work out unlike the risk taken with signing Mata.
Never have I read such utter tosh.
The obsession with foreign players comes from the consistent better value in foreign markets. In 2007, we had the choice of £16m (possibly more if we did go for him) for Darren Bent, or £20m for Torres. We paid £20m and got one of the best players in the world, if we got Bent, we'd have got a decent player who scores a lot of penalties. The foreign market is what it is, generally. Higher risk, but much greater reward. I can't stand the obsessive belief that premier league players are automatically proven. Torres hasn't proven anything at Chelsea, Keane and Konchesky proven nothing at Liverpool, whilst it's taken Glen Johnson a lot of time to really show how good he is, albeit slightly inconsistently. There are many more examples of clubs paying for apparent proven quality, when, if they had a bit of nous or a pair of balls, they'd go out and save themselves a shed load by scouting properly and efficiently.
We could end up paying £16m+ for Downing, possibly even £20m, and he isn't even close to being a worldy. I remember when Downing first got into the England set up and I thought "he's a decent player, a traditional player but probably lacks the consistency and all-round game to be a top player." Since then, I still say the same, I don't think he's got much finesse about his game, I feel he lacks composure and is prone to going missing, whilst I still don't rate his end product that highly. He's decent, he'd be the type of player I'd want to see us bring off the bench to change a game, but to be relied upon as our main source of creativity out wide? Deary me.