Summer Transfer Thread - The Verdict.

[paul_e]

I'd go with 6.5/10 for the window.

In reverse order of importance we needed:

Long term cover for Martinez.
Cover for Digne.
A replacement CB to start and allow Hause to move.
Coutinho to stay/not lose anyone from the first 11.
A new striker.
1-2 midfielders to add defensive stability and physicality into the team.

We've achieved all but 1 of those to various degrees.

The only outgoing I'm unhappy with is Traore but I'd have accepted it if we'd gone ahead with Sarr.

I think our squad is now much stronger with just a couple of attacking players needed to be full.

The first 11 is stronger but only if the manager uses the players properly and I see few signs he can do that.

[AV82EC]

I'd go with 6.5/10 for the window.

In reverse order of importance we needed:

Long term cover for Martinez.
Cover for Digne.
A replacement CB to start and allow Hause to move.
Coutinho to stay/not lose anyone from the first 11.
A new striker.
1-2 midfielders to add defensive stability and physicality into the team.

We've achieved all but 1 of those to various degrees.

The only outgoing I'm unhappy with is Traore but I'd have accepted it if we'd gone ahead with Sarr.

I think our squad is now much stronger with just a couple of attacking players needed to be full.

The first 11 is stronger but only if the manager uses the players properly and I see few signs he can do that.

Spot on Paul. I’ve given an extra half mark but around that score seems fair to me. The biggest issue is as you summise Gerrard.

[algy]

I'd go with 6.5/10 for the window.

In reverse order of importance we needed:

Long term cover for Martinez.
Cover for Digne.
A replacement CB to start and allow Hause to move.
Coutinho to stay/not lose anyone from the first 11.
A new striker.
1-2 midfielders to add defensive stability and physicality into the team.

We've achieved all but 1 of those to various degrees.

The only outgoing I'm unhappy with is Traore but I'd have accepted it if we'd gone ahead with Sarr.

I think our squad is now much stronger with just a couple of attacking players needed to be full.

The first 11 is stronger but only if the manager uses the players properly and I see few signs he can do that.

Probably fair, in hindsight.  Easy to get lost in the Gerrard Out fog, I guess.  As with you, had we bought Sarr in then I think it'd have looked a decent few months business in terms of having a good squad for whoever replaces Gerrard to work with.

[Brend'Watkins]

Can’t say I blame the owners tightening the reins regarding our transfer activity. We have doubts about the manager, they must too after an underwhelming end of last season and a disastrous start to this one. We have acquired some steady players with experience in the last days which give us cover and thats about it.

[Gareth]

Certainly not an exciting window, good start with Kamara & Carlos but we then needed 2/3 more of the same ilk whereas it seems all the subsequent signings were fillers not players to help us step up.

Coutinho feels like a Gerrard / Purslow vanity signing, was pretty average after a really good start when he joined…has started this season very much the same.

Dendoncker feels like a buying what’s on offer rather than a player who was on the target list.

Carlos being injured along with our weak minded start to the season has pierced any positivity

For me we still have a squad perfectly capable of 8th-12th but we need a tactical reset or a mgmt change because we simply are too slow and physically weak to play 433.

[nigel]

Agree with Paul e.
Overall not as bad as some are making out.
I suppose this is what happens when the majority of our business was done early.
If they’d been spread out over the window it would, probably, have had a different feel to it.
I wonder if we had a midfielder lined up in case Arsenal met our

[Clive W]

One thing to consider is that maybe the owners are looking at the economic storms that are about to hit us 

Perhaps they are finding it hard to justify spending £30m on a player when many fans may soon be faced with the choice of taking the family to VP or keeping the house warm and food on the table

Maybe I’m thinking too deeply

[Risso]

One thing to consider is that maybe the owners are looking at the economic storms that are about to hit us 

Perhaps they are finding it hard to justify spending £30m on a player when many fans may soon be faced with the choice of taking the family to VP or keeping the house warm and food on the table

Maybe I’m thinking too deeply

Of course you are. They're American and Egyptian billionaires, currently planning to spend a quarter of a billion on establishing a Las Vegas MIL team. What you suggest won't even have occurred to them.

[brontebilly]

One thing to consider is that maybe the owners are looking at the economic storms that are about to hit us 

Perhaps they are finding it hard to justify spending £30m on a player when many fans may soon be faced with the choice of taking the family to VP or keeping the house warm and food on the table

Maybe I’m thinking too deeply

They turned down 25m yesterday for a player who will leave for free next summer.

[SamTheMouse]

I'd go with 6.5/10 for the window.

In reverse order of importance we needed:

Long term cover for Martinez.
Cover for Digne.
A replacement CB to start and allow Hause to move.
Coutinho to stay/not lose anyone from the first 11.
A new striker.
1-2 midfielders to add defensive stability and physicality into the team.

We've achieved all but 1 of those to various degrees.

The only outgoing I'm unhappy with is Traore but I'd have accepted it if we'd gone ahead with Sarr.

I think our squad is now much stronger with just a couple of attacking players needed to be full.

The first 11 is stronger but only if the manager uses the players properly and I see few signs he can do that.

I'd agree with that. I was also disappointed they let Traoré go - for me he could definitely do a job playing inside forward as part of a front three. Tricksy and has goals in him.

[algy]

One thing to consider is that maybe the owners are looking at the economic storms that are about to hit us 

Perhaps they are finding it hard to justify spending £30m on a player when many fans may soon be faced with the choice of taking the family to VP or keeping the house warm and food on the table

Maybe I’m thinking too deeply

They turned down 25m yesterday for a player who will leave for free next summer.

Maybe they're confident of him signing a new contract if/when Gerrard gets the boot.

[LeeB]

I'd give it a 4/10. A good start, with definite high quality upgrades in Carlos and Kamara. Sadly it then fizzled out almost entirely. When the attacking bit of the midfield and the forward line is recognisably the source of most of the frustrations, not to strengthen it is a poor show. They obviously realised that with the aborted purchase of Sarr, so why they then didn't get somebody else in of that ilk, lord only knows. I think Dendoncker will be a useful purchase, but a forward and an 8 would have been very welcome and vital additions.

Excellent summary that I wholly agree with.

[brian green]

We would be in trouble if we were still owned by Tony cardboard belt Xia.  His monosodium glutamate empire must be facing difficult times.

[Clive W]

One thing to consider is that maybe the owners are looking at the economic storms that are about to hit us 

Perhaps they are finding it hard to justify spending £30m on a player when many fans may soon be faced with the choice of taking the family to VP or keeping the house warm and food on the table

Maybe I’m thinking too deeply

Of course you are. They're American and Egyptian billionaires, currently planning to spend a quarter of a billion on establishing a Las Vegas MIL team. What you suggest won't even have occurred to them.

They are successful business people

They would have considered the wider economic conditions

They may have chosen to ignore them but I don’t agree it would never have occurred to them

[boozey182]

It seems to me that there was a shift at some point during the transfer window - presumably once the season started. At that point, things were going well. The early business was really good, and I genuinely think that Kamara is a bit of a coup for us. The Carlos injury is, of course, very unfortunate. You can’t legislate for that, but we have done the next best thing and got someone in to fill in while he recovers.

It felt like we were going to kick on from our early business. Adding a couple of statement signings to the decent start - the elusive all-action midfielder that we have been missing since time began, and maybe an exciting forward as well - really go for it. That’s what had been alluded to by Gerrard and Purslow, so I think we were within our rights to expect something along those lines.

That hasn’t happened. While I think that the two new guys will make us a better team, if we’d have been planning to buy these players all along, we could have found much better.

I think the positive way to look at it is that the board/owners have lost faith in the manager - presumably when we showed up to Bournemouth with no idea how to play despite a full preseason. They don’t want to give him any more money, which may be wasted. He hasn’t shown any indication that he can improve players, so any player we buy under his management will presumably decrease in value. It doesn’t represent a good investment. I don't know what happened with the Ismaïla Sarr-ga, but it certainly suggests that the manager and the board weren't on the same wavelength.

So why is he still here? I can only assume it is timing now. They felt they couldn’t sack him on deadline day, or on the eve of a match against Man City, so they are holding back - hoping for a miracle tomorrow, but planning for the most likely outcome. It is quite telling that neither of our signings yesterday mentioned the manager in the quotes on the official site.

The other theory is that the owners have scaled back their ambition. I don’t want to believe this, so without knowing for sure either way, I am choosing to not believe it. The stadium expansion plans for the Villa ‘franchise’ are big - they won’t work for a team scrapping against relegation every year - we need European football and we need it quickly. They know this, and are working towards it, it’s just a mistake was made last year that we need to correct before we get back on the right path. Money will be made available to the new manager, who will be ambitious and exciting.

Right?

I will admit that everything is feeling a little bit stale at the moment. The entire club just feels slightly stuck. Cautious and unimaginative in every aspect, from our transfer targets and how we deal with ‘out of favour’ players to the pricing structure of tickets and catering solutions - even the social media output is bland, humourless and predictable. The whole club needs a shot in the arm, we need a buzz of excitement to get some momentum going.

That won’t happen with Gerrard in charge. He is the epitome of bland, humourless and predictable. There are two huge decisions coming up for the board and owners. One I think has already been made, and the other is the most important one that they have made so far. It will give us the answer of how badly they want this club to succeed on the scale of Sean Dyche to Mauricio Pochettino.