And there we go. It was predictable in April.
Shai never once indicated he would leave, you just had to read between the lines.
Teams are getting bigger and bigger. This is true. It's popular to pursuit "tall" midfielders or "bulls" to win the ball. You're right to say Baker is small and skinny.
It's also true that the best club of this era has been the club with the smallest and skinniest list.
Players like Shane Edwards, who was the smallest and skinniest player of his draft, have ended up dominating in the clearances. Not tall, not big, but great at clearances. Dusty is a good size (and the least physical of our mids), while literally everyone else is small and/or skinny.
When injuries hit last year (and this year), we turned to a few young replacements:
Ross - a bull.
RCD - tall.
Shai - small and skinny.
The small and skinny bloke took his game to the next level while the other two still have potential.
So yes, everyone is getting bigger and bigger. But why compete for the biggest players? Let them overpay for height. It just means all the small and skinny players will slip in the draft and we'll pay under to get them.
The way I see it, it's an arms race strategy vs being unique. How do you win an arms race with equalisation? You need the most currency, somehow. I don't know how you get the most trade currency every year. Sounds hard.
But players like Baker and Bolton are examples of what can happen when we don't get caught up in the height measuring contest.
Trading either of them away for currency would represent a paradigm shift from what we've been doing over the past decade.
