How about we look at his 8 (9) goals in 14 games and Hughes realises thats a very good return and we will struggle to sign someone better. (Yes Drogba, Villa and co are better but they aren't realistic, I could only really see Carew, RSC, Gomez coming in ahead of him)
How about we look at his record before that? "We will struggle to sign someone better"? PMSL. There are plenty of better quality strikers out there that could easily claim "Big Phil"'s place in the starting line-up and I'm sure we'll be linked with over 9000 of them during the summer.
I'm sure you followed Drogba's early career? He spent 4 years in the French division 2 where he scored 12 goals in 65 games, Big Phil is 2/3s of the way there in a tougher league playing less than 25% of Droba's games.
*groan* Caicedo isn't in the same class as Drogba. "Big Phil" has a chronic lack of pace, can't jump more than a foot off the ground and has a first-touch comparable to Benjani. Obviously he has some good points like the occasional surging run and tapping in 5 yarders at the end of a move he's rarely part of, but other than that comparing him to Drogba is laughable.