January 2023 Transfer Rumours, Discussions and Done Deals Thread

[Risso]

If every club held on to its players until they'd secured a replacement there would be no transfers.

I suspect Ings wanted to go to get gametime and whilst he's scored some, he's not exactly been prolific; if anything he's just had lots of people on here moaning about how slow, shit and past it he is.

I don't think anybody here has said he's been a huge success. What he is, is better than no player at all.

[ozzjim]

I think that's where the biggest criticism should be, the selling your top scorer (plus 6 more players in the squad) without replacing them at all. Holding out to sell Ings tomorrow would have been more understandable to see if a replacement arrived.

[Rory]

Europe. You're having a laugh. I just want us to fucking finish in the top 10. Fuck me we've been utter shit for so long now.

Yes, top half should be our baseline. We're recovering from a fucking atrocious decade (and arguably quarter-century), but as a club, we shouldn't be happy with anything lower than that.

It doesn't have to be all at once, but in the medium term, we should be top half 4 seasons out of 5 and challenging in the cups, aiming to win one or two per decade. I don't think that's unreasonable: it's in line with our infrastructure and wage bill.

My knowledge of football in general is inferior to pretty much everyone on here, but I have found our business this window quite mystifying. If anything, I'd say it was a product of a difficult market and Emery's self-confidence, rather than incompetence or lack of dosh. He sees this as the very early days of a long-term project, and is thinking of sustainability, backing himself and the squad he does have to get us a decent second half of the season.

If that works out, maybe it was vindicated, maybe we just got away with one. If not, questions should be asked about the wisdom of our approach.

(Assuming, that is, we don't announce some signings tomorrow.)

[Matt C]

I think that’s the point. No qualms in any of the exits this window save the decision on Ings which looks - 24 hours before the deadline - like a pretty foolish decision.

[SoccerHQ]

It’s embarrassing to find yourself thinking this but Wolves - Wolves FFS - seem to be immune to the problems we have signing decent players.

I would imagine they also have a higher transfer fee paid than us.

Wolves.

I’m not suggesting we go and spunk 50m on some plodder to fix that, but I am starting to seriously doubt our transfer market ambition.

I’m tired of hearing the club talk the talk, time to start matching words with actions.

Ambitious? Great. Show us.

Really?

Matheus Cunha (loan, Atletico Madrid) - ok but only a loan and looks like it'll take most of that time settling in
Mario Lemina (undisclosed, Nice) - nowhere near the quality of our midfielders
Pablo Sarabia (£4.4m, Paris Saint-Germain) - potentially decent but could easily be a bit of a drinkwater
Craig Dawson (£3.3m, West Ham United) - past it
Daniel Bentley (undisclosed, Bristol City) - meh
Joao Gomes (£15m, Flamengo) - no idea on this one

Nothing on that list that makes me wish we'd snuck in ahead of them.

I think it's more they already had guys like Hwang, Raul Jimenez and Diego Costa upfront. correctly decided they were getting relegated with that set of options and decided to add to that by signing Cunha right at the start of it.

Once done they then decided to let Guedes go.

I can't understand our thinking with Archer really. We waste six months of his career by barely playing him and with current state of play he'd have play plenty over next few months, was really good for Boro at the weekend v recent premier league team so I refuse to believe he'd be no good at this level.

If people think Watkins, Duran, Bailey and Buendia is all we need to have a serious go at finishing above Brighton and Liverpool then fair enough but it looks very light. A few injuries and it basically means playing Coutinho as the "pressing" attacker or just bunging endless midfielders into forward positions and hoping one of them can hit a few goals.

With the top class manager we now have we should be giving him attacking options like he had at Villareal and Arsenal.

[gpbarr]

We had to shift a bunch of players who were eating up wages, and delivering very little - good job on that front. The only one I’d like to have seen join the exit door is PC - busted flush and taking the piss given his wages.

Assuming we don’t sign anyone tomorrow (maybe we will) one has to assume Emery’s instructions were to go for very specific players - and the timing wasn’t right. He backs himself - I like that.

It could turn out to be foolish and the squad is certainly too light to sustain a real push for top 6 but top half is on - we still have a better squad than Brighton, Fulham, or Brentford for example - and a top half finish after the nightmare Emery inherited would be progress.

We have as a club wasted so much of our owners money in the last decade on largely crap players (especially during the January window) that I for one, welcome the restraint this time. Get Carlos back - will be like a new signing. I think we shall see Duran blooded and who knows what he’ll produce with Emery coaching him properly.

I understand the frustration but buying in some mad rush to qualify for Europe is the sort of short term thinking that predicated our precipitous decline at the end of MON’s era. The foundations and planning needs to be smarter this time - and I trust NSWE/Emery are doing just that.

[SoccerHQ]

It's a good chance though this season.

Fulham been brilliant but lost the last two and have Chelsea away on Friday.

Brentford were pretty poor v Leeds and surely Toney will get a decent ban once FA have finished working out his 20 000 bets in the last few years.

Brighton playing amazingly well. However we beat them away and they're still only three points clear of us.

Liverpool in a total malaise.

Chelsea copying the Nottingham Forest template and making endless signings under a manager not used to top level. Think they'll start to pick up now but can't see them getting much over 60 points.

Feels a bit like two years ago when our defensive record was brilliant, we had you know who in amazing form....and we brought Morgan Sanson. One injury and we sild back down to a frustrating 11th finish.

Then one transfer and we spent needless time well in the bottom half for most of last 18 months.

Getting into europe keeps Kamara and Emi sweet and that's huge for where we are currently. Beat Leicester and we're in a very good place....hopefully with another good attacker involved.

[ROBBO]

Who's our head scout these days? surely there must be many very good players out there without having to spend muti-millions. Another Benteke please.

[Rory]

The only one I’d like to have seen join the exit door is PC - busted flush and taking the piss given his wages.

I'm with you there. Given his age and the fact he was the most expensive player in the world a few years ago, it's incredible he can barely get off our bench.

I thought signing him permanently was a coup, but my god has he turned into a black hole of money with no return. I don't even want to think of his wages, it must be, what, £6-8m a year?

He makes Stephen Ireland look like a steal.

[Toronto Villa]

Positive momentum is hard to come by at this level for clubs in the bottom half aspiring to get into the top 6-8. We have it right now. I want us to attack from a position of strength. I hope we don’t come to regret this.

[Percy McCarthy]

I think we should acknowledge that the players we have been most strongly linked with, ie. reported to have actually made offers for, have either signed (Moreno, Duran),  turned us down (Williams) or got injured (Deulofeu). So as I see it, UE is being backed. Maybe we’re just having some bad luck.

Also, I think I read something tonight along the lines of Dembele refusing to go anywhere in this window in order to cash in come the end of the season when his contract runs out. Granted, the links to him have been nowhere near as widely reported as to the other four.

[Dante Lavelli]

We appear to have completely written off Duran.  At £15-18m he should be considered part of the squad, and getting minutes off the bench and the odd game is exactly what he needs for his development.  Adding too many other attackers and we’d arguably need to be sending him on loan.

[PaulWinch again]

We appear to have completely written off Duran.  At £15-18m he should be considered part of the squad, and getting minutes off the bench and the odd game is exactly what he needs for his development.  Adding too many other attackers and we’d arguably need to be sending him on loan.

From my perspective it’s not written off it’s more a reticence about putting too much pressure on him. Him being one injury away from being the senior striker is just negligent.

[ChicagoLion]

The risk is do nothing and watch the predators come for Kamara Emi in the summer.

[Malandro]

I think we’ve done exactly the right thing in ditching Ings - If we get a decent stop gap forward.
The fee may not be massive, but getting rid of his wages and also the worry about his poor injury history.

If he was still with us, with this new injury, we are almost in the same position - we can’t play him, can’t rush him back…
we’d be in the position of thinking we should buy a forward.

I’m optimistic a few things will happen today.