DaveWHU1964 wrote: We hear this a lot on here but sorry, it's wrong. Downing was neither here nor there to the signing of another striker. Regardless of signing Downing the striker situation would have stayed the same. We were not aiming to spend £6 million on another striker which then instead got blown on Downing. The strategy all Summer was to bring in a striker on loan- we know that. The club constantly pursued Lukaku right up until the last minute. We evidently had the wages for him so Downing's signing didn't affect that either.
Not so according to our owners. When Downing was signed there were plenty of quotes from them saying it was Allardyce's choice to sign a winger over a centre forward with the last of the transfer budget. It was pretty clear they would have preferred a striker in with that money as well as trying to get another one in on loan.
As for Carroll, I was excited when we got him on loan, those feelings were confirmed after his debut performance against Fulham. But I wasn't so excited by his permanent signing after he'd missed a lot of last season through injury, had put in a lot of below par performances and scored just 7 goals. At the time I feared we had spent too much of our transfer budget on him and needed two more strikers in as well as him. Those thought aren't hindsight ones, me and plenty of others were saying it back then.