I don't believe for one second that City's recruitment has become lazy. With what we know, the whole department is producing reports and analysis on thousands of players every year.
They can't force Pep to give the sign off on them.
Can you really imagine being sat in a room 18mths ago with Pep and Txiki with Aguero gone and all the recruitment staff could offer was "How about we sign Harry Kane".
Did we have Txiki sat there in the summer telling Pep you can't have Cucurella, your having this young lad we have found at Anderlecht instead. Pep would have walked out the door years ago if thats how we ran things.
I think Pep has got a bit complacent in all honesty, he seemingly has unlimited confidence/arrogance that anyone can be taught and improve under his coaching.
For several years we have all been crying out for a LB but seemingly Pep thinks its alright.
He coached an attacking midfielder pulled from the CFG to play there, pulled Delph out of midfield and played him there, turned a RB into a LB and now Ake has had a run he is now our next great hope.
By all accounts Pep was panic stricken during the summer over our CB situation which is why we did a late deal for Akanji. There has to be something we are missing with why he refuses to sign a LB.