I think we've had a diabolical window.
If you'd sat here and said we've have signed Werner back on loan, Gray, Solanke, and a young Burnley winger that literally nobody had heard of despite him playing in the PL last season, I wouldn't have believed it.
That isn't anything near enough. We haven't improved the first 11 at all, despite limping in the PL since November.
We may have just about improved at CF with Solanke, but that has yet to be seen, and I don't feel he is massively better than Richie, he's just more available.
We haven't improved in CM and we haven't improved our wide players. They were our biggest areas of concern this window!
With Son pretty much needing to be taken out to pastures new imminently, we are now faced with signing two top quality wide forwards rather than just one next season.
Relying on Gray and Bergvall is just mental for the season. They need to be eased in, same with Odobert, but we have basically with our transfer strategy decided to pin our season on three teenagers to close the gap to the top 2 / 4.
It's just funny how many fans bury their heads in the hand and think its all positive when we are being mugged off by the club, every season is the same and we always fall short. Levy just doesn't ever push the boat out and pay the money needed to get top deals over the line.
I'm just sick of our approach. it's never win now, always a project which never quite goes anywhere. When we were on the verge of actually challening, we didn't sign anyone at all. Where as Woolwich go out and spend 100 mill on Rice. Does anyone seriously believe if we finish 3rd next season, the club will push the boat out and sign two one or top tier players? It won't, it'll be another few kids or back up targets from clubs where Levy feels we can take advantage.
Going into season 2 of a new project it's imperative you improve the first team. Who is our alternative to Maddison when he stinks the place out again for 6 months or gets injured? Kulu? the guy we all wanted gone last season because he hasn't played well for about 18 months, but a few good preseason games and apparently he's good enough now?
Our top two targets were Eze and Neto? What happened? Wouldn't play the money for Eze and Neto we pissed around on the deal thinking we could save money and Chelsea swooped in. Same old story, we should have bene aggressive and signed him up weeks ago. I guarantee he would have signed for us if we'd agreed a deal earlier in the summer. But we waited for Chelsea to get their act together and that was it.
I'm not a fan of Ange, but this window to me has put the nail in the coffin for him. I think he's going to fail anyway, but this window has extinguished the last hope he had of success here.
By the time Gray and Berg and Odobert are lighting up the PL, if they ever do, it'll be about four or five years from now. By then Romero will be long gone, probably VDV too. and we will need half a dozen new players from elsewhere and the cycle continues.
As ever I hope I am wrong, I'll run around naked if we have a great season, but I'll be stunned.
