January Transfer Window - The Verdict.

[Dave]

Why are people expecting the coming summer to be significantly better than the last few underwhelming summers?

Because this one has a proven manager in charge?

I imagine the same logic could have been made on January 1st about why this January might be better than previous ones.

[pauliewalnuts]

re the 'clearing the decks' thing - Sanson and Nakamba will be back in the summer, so we'll have to clear those decks again.

[paul_e]

Why are people expecting the coming summer to be significantly better than the last few underwhelming summers?

Because this one has a proven manager in charge?

So this but also what gaps are there in the squad and how many players in the squad need to be replaced to give us a shot of that the top 7-8 ? For me...

Gaps: Striker and versatile midfielder (to cover central and out wide).
Replace: Olsen, Chambers, maybe Coutinho, Bert/Bailey (replace 1 of them with a more consistent option and keep the other as an option) and Dendoncker

So as little as 4 signings could be enough to make us genuinely competitive in the top half of the league. We've seen links to people like Williams and Guendouzi, if that's the sort of level we sign players at then we could have a really strong squad come September.

and it'll be easier because there's only a handful of players to go out as well.

[LeeB]

Why are people expecting the coming summer to be significantly better than the last few underwhelming summers?

Because this one has a proven manager in charge?

I imagine the same logic could have been made on January 1st about why this January might be better than previous ones.

January is different though, nobody's contract expires in that month for a start

[Bully2345]

re the 'clearing the decks' thing - Sanson and Nakamba will be back in the summer, so we'll have to clear those decks again.

Easier to sell people who have been playing somewhere

[VinnieChase84]

Why are people expecting the coming summer to be significantly better than the last few underwhelming summers?

This is where i am now at also. Always seems to be "we tried" but its about the next window being "the big one" . Then we do this over and over.
Yes its clear our recruitment has not been good enough to date but our net spend of circa £40m over 4 windows does not overly scream ambition.

I do fully expect a sea of change now though for one reason and one reason only... Emery
Lange is toast. We will have a new DOF in charge of football sides and one that's picked by Emery, them two will then work together to move this football club forwards.

Purslow will stay quiet in the background like has done since UE came in and concentrate on the commercial side

[Clampy]

Yep. Sanson might impress over in France and his club might be happy to make the deal permanent and if Nakamba does well for Luton, he may well be picked up  too.

[kippaxvilla2]

And I will get a date with the insta model I am following...st..

[not3bad]

I was expecting us to get our targets so disappointed we didn't. Both selling Ings and loaning out Archer seems a strange decision, especially given Duran is an unknown quantity. Traore, OK, better than a panic buy. As other people have stated, it seems like we wasted an opportunity to push on.

[Clark W Griswold]

Why are people expecting the coming summer to be significantly better than the last few underwhelming summers?

Because this one has a proven manager in charge?

It is a good point Lee but we've heard it so many times before that my view is that i'll 'believe when i see it' and my gut is that once again we won't.

The classic one, different owner i know, but Lerners first summer with O Neill, many of us expecting to see something a bit like what Chelsea had been doing and we went on to sign the likes of Harewood, Davies on loan and Carson on loan.

[LeeB]

And I will get a date with the insta model I am following...st..

I've told you again and again, McDonalds is not a suitable venue

[kippaxvilla2]

Even when Gerrard was in charge all the talk was of 'getting targets in early'.  Which we did to an extent but we were still players light at the end of it as we are now.

[caster troy]

In isolation I don't think it was *that* bad but in the context of the last couple of years it isn't a good reflection of our general recruitment.

Moreno might be decent but he is our third left back signing in the space of 12 months, the fact we even needed an upgrade in that position doesn't reflect well on Lange/Purslow.

Ings should never have been signed in the first place, total panic buy and that left us in a position where we felt like we had to sell him just to claw back some of the wasted money. Surely we knew there was interest in advance, and should have been prepared for it?

Seeing as Archer was not used at all this season, he should have been loaned out in August. If he had been we might now have been able to recall him as an option having had that additional experience. We shouldn't have agreed to the Boro loan till the end of the window either.

We quite clearly needed a winger in the summer, but bailed on Sarr and did nothing. That left us hunting in the window when it is 'notoriously difficult to sign players.' Now we will go a whole season without that gap being filled, limiting the formations we can play. It isn't exactly a good advert for our scouting team that we couldn't find a single winger that could have been a better option than a recalled Traore who hasn't been fit for 18 months now.

Duran could turn out to be a great signing but we shouldn't expect him to be prime Benteke from day 1, much more likely to need a JPA length settling in period.

[SamTheMouse]

I still think letting Ings go now was dumb. He may not have been brilliant for us, but he was still our top scorer ffs. Presumably Watkins is now going to have to be an ever present, playing 90 minutes every game?

I don't see why we couldn't have kept Ings until the summer. We might have got a bit less for him, sure, but it wouldn't have been nothing.

[pablo_picasso]

I understand the frustration. I would have felt it myself last year. But I can see both sides of this. And if not splashing on third or fourth choices means we end up with more like Kamara, then I wont complain.

Although I strongly disagree about sending Archer out. He should have stayed & been utilised in our first team.

I have said it before though, there is no excuse not to have a massive summer with several marquee signings now though. No excuses. No kicking the can down the road. And more work needs to be done to identify third or fourth options that are viable to improve us. They are clearly out there. The world is a big place, so there can be no excuses in the summer. If nothing happens in the summer, then we have every right to kick off at the board.