There was no way we were buying another CB when Colo was staying in the summer. We also have decent cover there with four senior CBs in the squad. There are not many teams in the league who have more than four CBs in their squad and I can't see how we can blame Kinnear and Ashley for our CB depth. Just have to hope that the remaining three can put up solid displays.
We very nearly signed one we tracked for the best part of two seasons and who both Pardew and Carr agreed could be a valuable addition to our squad. When our esteemed DoF pulled the plug on that deal single handedly he hinted at knowing we needed another centre back and thinking he could do better. Now I am aware Kinnear is full of s***, but I do believe that for his intervention we would have signed Douglas regardless of whether Colo was staying or going. Rightly so too, because despite having four senior centre backs on our books, one had his mind set on leaving and has been suffering more and more niggling injuries recently, one has been injury prone and blunder prone for years, one has been proven to be not very good at this level and the remaining one was still settling in.
I don't think we can carry five CBs in our squad. Out of those five Willy is the only one who wouldn't mind being the fourth choice. He hasn't been very great but he's totally fine as a fourth choice. So I believe that if Douglas would've joined we would've needed to get rid of either Colo, MYM or Taylor. MYM maybe could've been played at FB but we aren't exactly short of players there either.