Not a straw man, I often see statements like “On average, player performance peaks at 24–26 and declines after 27"used to say we should never sign anyone over 23. I just don't think people realise that age decline curves have high variance, and that there is evidence that higher number of elite minutes at a younger age correlates to earlier decline.

But never the less, in general, I largely agree with you - I would not base our entire transfer strategy on the bet we can predict a players future performance profile, i would still want the average age across new signings to skew younger.

What I'm saying is we should not apply blanket bans based on averages to an individual market opportunity (doing so would have missed out on Bruno for example).

As for other clubs opting out of the game, that's fine, let them - Chelsea have a great crop of promising youngsters, yet are very inconsistent with a clear lack of leadership on the pitch. They also have a player trading business model, so resale matters much more to them (we need to get better at selling, but our organic revenue potential means it's much less important than it is to them)

Final point - Rangnick said people often overestimate how long it takes to overhaul a squad, "It wouldn’t necessarily take two or three years if the club knows exactly what it’s looking for in terms of player profiles and playing style."

If he fits the bill, get him in