Transfer Deadline Day: Goodbye Big Daws

alderz

Right now, 9/10. I think there are one or two gaps in the squad, but I am happy to have one or two gaps rather than six. The proof is in the pudding though. It’s only a good window if the signings work out, and it’s entirely possible that it feels like a 4/10 in a couple of months. I remember being very pleased when we signed Havard Nordtveit and that didn’t work out at all.

OldCastleSwift

alderz said:

Right now, 9/10. I think there are one or two gaps in the squad, but I am happy to have one or two gaps rather than six. The proof is in the pudding though. It’s only a good window if the signings work out, and it’s entirely possible that it feels like a 4/10 in a couple of months. I remember being very pleased when we signed Havard Nordtveit and that didn’t work out at all.

Good point, that. Kehrer has looked very good, and Cornet and Emerson have PL experience, but we haven't seen enough of Aguerd, Downes, Scamacca or Paqueta to know how well they'll settle and perform.

OutcastLondoner

I'd say 8/10 because we covered a lot of weaknesses but I'm still unsure that we can embed all of these new players smoothly. You never address all of your frailties in one window but we've tried to this time. I don't think covering every position is what makes it 10/10 but that doing your business in a way that transfers can be smoothly applied to be effective is. Keeping hold of our first team players from last season is a major plus though, taking pressure off the new signings while creating competition.

WHU_Champo_league_in_7_years

Tbf I don't think a 10/10 window exists....maybe if you are Man City and have the funds to do what you want but for me, a perfect window doesn't exist

Because of that, I'm going to go 9/10, imo the best possible window we could've expected

We've spent net 3rd highest in the league

We needed a CF as priority, we brought in Italys #9

We needed an extra attacking midfielder, we signed Brazils #10

We needed a new CB, we signed one of the French leagues best and then followed up with a German international once Ageurd got injured

Emerson, Cornet are solid signings, as is Areola

Downes is a bit of a wildcard but hoping he can do a job

Also can't he underestimated how good it is to get rid of deadwood like Yarmolenko, Fredericks, Masuaku etc. Who have for the last couple years consistently shown they aren't up to the level we need

Additionally we didn't sell any first teamers like Rice, Bowen, Fornals etc.

ASLEFshrugged

I'm not sure we can rate a window until we see if the new players are good enough

Anderson looked like good signing for the first season, it wasn't until the second season that he started to look a bit dodgy

yoyo

Fingers crossed they all settle in and perform. On paper they look good,the owners have backed the manager and I'm pleased with our business. Over my expectations if I'm honest

Bazshuayi

I have to say its been so much more than I expected. In a perfect world I wish we'd done some business when we were riding high last season. I could never have imagined we'd sign players of a certain quality (whether one and all work out, it still showed excellent intent).

If I could both dream and rewind, signing Paqueta, Kehrer, Aguerd, Cornet and Scamacca last season would've seen us massively hit on the top 4 door (IMO )

buffybegood

buffybegood said:

We're losing 5 players from the current small squad (Areola and Kral are only loans, Noble, Yarmalenko and Fredericks are out of contract), we've desperately needed a CF for the last 3 windows, and Masuaku and Diop urgently need to be shipped out and improved on.

I know Diop hasn't looked quite as bad in the few recent games, but he's just not good enough, and I think his contract is up next summer so this summer is the last chance to get something back on him. Fredericks though, as long as Masuaku is properly replaced at LB, won't need replacing as we have Johnson and Coufal at RB. Given that Kral, although regularly on the bench, just wasn't used, that's 6 new players (excluding Kral, 7 if you bring in 2 CM), only upgrading the worst 2 that have been used this season and bringing in a CF, for an even smaller squad than this year, and 7 new players if we want the same size squad as this season.

Above is what I wrote in May when we were still on February's "Nooooo etc" transfer thread. I was looking at players for the following positions:

GK: (Out) Areola........................(In) Areola
LB: (Out) Masuaku.....................(In) Emerson
CB: (Out) Diop.............................(In) Aguerd
CM: (Out) Noble..........................(In)
CM: (Out) Kral.............................(In) Downes
FW: (Out) Yarmalenko..............(In) Cornet
CF: (Out) No-one (Haller?)........(In) Scamacca

In addition we also did the following business:

CB: (Out) No-one.........................(In) Kehrer
FW: (Out) Vlasic..........................(In) Paqueta

Obviously it's hard to judge quite how good our dealings are until we've seen more of them in the claret and blue, but, on the surface it appears that we've addressed most of the postions I initially outlined, as well as bringing in Kehrer after Aguerd's injury, and then finally managing to ship out Vlasic (our next weakest player after Diop and Masuaku) and bring in Paqueta.

Credit should be given for managing to off-load Diop, Masuaku and Vlasic, especially getting a good price for Diop. Emerson might be a slightly underwhelming signing, and I know a few of us were hoping for a more dynamic and younger LB, but he's actually a similar profile to Coufal when we signed him and so probably inline with what Moyes was actually looking for (there weren't too many serious links to LBs earlier in the window).

So, the real glaring omission from the requirements is that we didn't bring in a DM to genuinely rotate with Rice and Soucek (the Noble replacement/upgrade). Downes has come in, but, imo, wouldn't have done if Palace weren't in for him; we'd have left him at Swansea for another season and continued to monitor him. He's not viewed by Moyes as ready just yet, and the fact that we pursued Onana so strongly suggests we definitely wanted another CM in the rangy/athletic mould. We also currently have Coventry in the squad, but I think he's below Downes in the pecking order and if, as has been the case in previous seasons, we can still loan out players to lower leagues, I suspect he may be placed somewhere in the next day or two.

Paqueta is not only a huge upgrade on Vlasic, he's also much more versatile so he can be used in a deeper role too, which does give us options in CM (although judging by Moyes's comment he does seem to view Paqueta as a ACM), and there's also the possibility that Kehrer will be used there once we have Aguerd back. These factors help to offset the lack of a Onana/Sangare/Fofana/Bissouma type signing to genuinely rotate with with Rice and Soucek, so it's not quite such a concern, but one of those (and possibly that more dynamic LB) would have been needed for a 10/10 window. For me it's a 9/10, but way better than I expected tbh, especially as we didn't lose anyone we didn't want to.

OldCastleSwift

There have been significant upgrades in the squad:

Emerson > Masuaku
Cornet > Yarmolenko
Scamacca > Yarmolenko
Paqueta > Lanzini
Kehrer > Diop

Aguerd > Ogbonna is another potential upgrade, but obviously we haven't seen enough of Aguerd to know for sure, and the jury is out as to whether Downes and Coventry are an upgrade of Noble and Kral, and this is my only real concern with the new squad.

ASLEFshrugged

I think the most notable thing about this window is the lack of any loan players with an option to buy which Moyes has used as a very effective recruitment tool

steve

8 out of 10 for me pretty happy ,but we will see how it works out ,Any free agents out there we may want .Greed is my middle name

Pearces_Left_Foot

Judging by the amount of signings we needed and the quality we have managed to get in i would say its been a very successful window 9 out 10. If we can get the players integrated smoothly I am looking to the season a lot more than i was

Slacker

As others have said it looks really good on paper but nobody can tell ‘til, at the earliest,Christmas. Always good to see a couple of new faces though.

BubblesNeverDies

Buffy, sorry, couldn't resist it

GK: (Out) Areola........................(In) Areola

In, out, in, out, shake it all about!

Bazshuayi

Slacker said:

As others have said it looks really good on paper but nobody can tell ‘til, at the earliest,Christmas. Always good to see a couple of new faces though.

Yeoldhammer

its a good window but Moyes needs to get this team working now. He has the depth now.

claretandbluesky

I think the perfect window constitutes identifying your targets, getting them and then them performing and improving the team as you hoped. The last part is the bit that we have yet to find out.

What we do know for sure is that Moyes has been supported significantly by the owners and we have some players that look exciting, and as a fan have already got me looking forward to each match even more than usual.

It would be unreasonable to imagine they all work out and it's likely we will have an Anderson or Yarmalenko among them, but hopefully a Bowen and Zouma also.

EXETERHAMMER

I thought we needed 7 or 8 players and we got that. I can't blame the board for what happens this season.
Exciting signings too. My only doubt is how good Downes is and will he get minutes.

nychammer66

Does Dawson staying count as a signing?

ScotHammer

7/10, simply because we don’t know how everyone will integrate into the team (as has been said already).

I’ll admit I was one of those wondering what Newman was doing after the January window, and the slow start to the summer window, but it kinds of speaks for itself now.

What I liked was that we had identified options. In previous windows we have run around like headless chickens if we missed out on first target. This time we seemed to have choices if Moyes alleged “first choice” was not coming (eg. Broja – Scamaca, Lingard – Pacqueta). Arguably we ended up with better players! We could also react quickly when Aguerd was injured and get extra cover in.

The one downside would be that we did not have more in before the season started. On the upside we will have more interest at the World Cup, and Dec won’t be as lonely!! 😀

COYI ⚒

OutcastLondoner

I think Newman had a 10/10 window by the way. If his job is to identify players for our weak positions then he did that brilliantly. Even the positions we didn’t fill, we did have targets for and they all made sense. Of course some of our transfer business didn’t go totally to plan but I’m not sure it’s his job to negotiate and you can’t force players to come.

Pearces_Left_Foot

I like the fact the last few days of the transfer window we were n't scrambling around trying to find players to fill important gaps in the squad and had done our business already, hopefully a step in the right direction.

Whitehorsehammer

9.5 is my view, we are judging the window the day after it closed, how they all turn out is a separate conversation for later. Based on the apparent quality and positions covered is why I give it 9.5/10

Ravel49

New 6️⃣ year deal for Broja

OldCastleSwift

Just keeping his price high. Reckon we'll go for him next summer as Antonio's replacement.

Bazshuayi

Nobody can expect every signing to work out. So, with that in mind, I think with the players we brought in we did exceptionally well. 10/10 if we had snagged Gallagher or similar quality

ASLEFshrugged

Alonso joins Barcelona on a free a few hours after leaving Chelsea on a mutual

I suppose that's one way of doing it

steve

Ross Barkley gone to nice .Lucky we were not all over that

Ravel49

Nice

Fortuneseeker

Aren’t they also in the Europa Conference League?