With the budget we had the strategy was to go for players who had promised a lot previously but for some reason their career had stalled (attitude, injury, etc.) They were very cheap and for a reason - add in acclimatizing to a new country and it isn't surprising in hindsight that it didn't work.
Hamer was the outlier as we paid a significant fee for someone who didn't have any obvious baggage and his stats in the Eredivisie looked great.
This bid signals that we are moving up into the bracket that Hamer was in (which is less of a risk) as we have more to spend now. Doubt Robins was against players like Van Ewjik but players from Ligue 2 who had done their ACL.