I fully agree that reliability is a big one. Like Kroos has been for Real Madrid or De Bruyne once was for City. I think Frimpong was quite reliable, but then I didn't actually watch all his games like I did for some other players/teams.

I think he is similar to Jeremy Doku, but same for me that I didn't watch every single game, but every time I saw Doku play for like 30 minutes because he was coming from the bench, I was wondering why Pep didn't give him more chances to be a starter. Maybe he wasn't as reliable as I thought he is, but you can't just go with goals scored. Doku, for instance, gave the defending team such a hard time that all his teammates in the front had so much more space for themselves. That's another important effect of players like Doku or Frimpong.
[/quote

Yeah, we didn't have such maestros since Gerrard but in holding roles, we really missed Fabinho... am hopeful we have Gravenbersch step into that but in a much, much longer period. He was right up there in terms of consistency last season but he'll need to show it for the next three years to really start carving out that name for himself. Still young and perfectly positioned to claim that spot as his own for a decade, I hope so! I don't watch Frimpong much but I feel like he has some of those midfield qualities I like in modern football, that ball-carrying-under-pressure-or-turnover to, as you say, allow more space-manipulation ahead of him.

When we have no sugar daddy, gotta be better at money management, right? Haha

And ah, you said 3 players in your original post, now you're counting Eki who hasn't signed yet and Mamar who signed last season haha, but yeah point taken. I'm okay with 300m for all these guys -- if we also get to offload a few surplus. About time we stopped letting you guys play all by yourself with the millions, eh?

You better be winning the league, leave the trophies for us..!