Just a question, mate, in good faith - if Georgiou hadn't vaguely impressed (not even in an 'Alli nutmegging Modric' sense - just looked mostly competent) in a few meaningless pre-season games, and if it had been some other youngster like Jack Roles instead... would you have included him in that list of fantastic youngsters that apparently justify not spending anything on 'average' players?
At the end of that logic lies the Wenger strategy between 2006 and 2012 - don't buy a single player because it would compromise Amaury Bischoff's career, or set Emmanuel Frimpong's prospects back, or damage the chance to afford playing time to some other Scum rando (Denilson, Henri Lansbury, Sanchez Watt, Nacer Barazite) who looks vaguely competent at first, then flounders hopelessly and is ultimately quietly sold off to Arsenal Tula in the Russian league. It's a strategy that worked so well that almost none of Arsenal's vaunted youth made it through, their first-team stars all left in a hurry because Wenger thought having the likes of Gilles Sunu as their backup was a splendid idea and they flounded in 4th feeling sorry for themselves - *until* Wenger started splashing the cash on genuinely good players (Sanchez, Ozil and co), and *lo and behold!*, they actually started winning things again.
At the very least, the excuse one can make for Wenger is that he had no choice because his hands were tied by the library. Yet, it irks me that people propose adopting essentially the same approach not just on the pragmatic level, but essentially on nothing more than blind faith that this time, our own academy can provide 100% of the players we need - that no one will prove below our level, or prove otherwise unable to replace the likes of Eriksen, Alli, Kane and Toby, or prove just unsuited to our team and our approach.
Onomah, Winks, KWP, CCV, even Georgiou and Jack Roles...these are talented youngsters who deserve and will get playing time. If not here, then elsewhere - at Villa in Onomah's case, for example. But there is a wide gap between saying that we should blood our youngsters where possible and saying that we should avoid spending money on 'average' players because KWP, Winks, Onomah and Georgiou 'could be' major players for us two or three years down the line. If Eriksen leaves because we flounder around with insufficient squad cover for a season or two....if Kane leaves, if Toby leaves, if Lloris leaves...the opportunity cost of ignoring those 'average' signings to trust in players who won't be ready for a long time, if at all, will be sorely felt. Both by us, and by the youngsters themselves - the damage done from a blind introduction without safety nets or alternatives to ease the pressure on them could harm them every bit as much as it could harm us.
And out of those players I've listed Toby, Lloris and Eriksen weren't born and bred youth - they were bought. The complaint of 'not enough talented players on the market' gets thrown around every summer, without fail, to justify the continually increasing spending that goes on. Yet, of our spine of players - hell, of our first eleven (Lloris, Trippier, Toby, Jan, Rose, Wanyama, Dembele, Eriksen, Alli, Son, Kane) only Kane is actually an academy product. All the rest were bought, many recently. It isn't fair to justify a lack of spending with the youth reasoning, given that reality - imo.
