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6 hours ago, Steve_Guppy_Left_Foot said:

Rondon scored 11 in 32 for Newcastle, and how many chances do they create? Practically none. He's 31, I think he could do alright, he's not the worst back up for a team below the elite. 

He wasn't bad for the Baggies either - physical and a good finisher, precisely the sort of player that causes nightmares for us. I remember him swatting Huth aside like a housefly. 

[Guest Chocolate Teapot]

People voting villa had the best window?

[Guest Chocolate Teapot]

At the start of the window I'd have snapped your hand off for a window like that. Slight disappointment we've not signed a left footed right winger but it's a strong window. Equally as strong is not selling a big name, it's not a window we're used to but we can all probably see the value we create when we do sell a big name.

 

Three young players, 2 experienced ones. Signed the physicality in midfield and defence we've been lacking. Pace in daka and lookman, and Bertrand to mentor Thomas.

 

We just need to keep all our players fit now and Rodgers needs to rotate sensibly. The drop off in quality between the first team and the second team now is pretty minimal.

 

On the positive have heard Fofana and Justin are doing well as they return from injury. 

[Scotch]

10 minutes ago, Chocolate Teapot said:

People voting villa had the best window?

I did, without a doubt. 

 

Yes, they lost Graelish but they added Buendia, Bailey, Ings, Young and Tuanzebe. They are by far a better team now and they done it whilst making a cool £20odd million profit. 

[Guest Chocolate Teapot]

Just now, Scotch said:

I did, without a doubt. 

 

Yes, they lost Graelish but they added Buendia, Bailey, Ings, Young and Tuanzebe. They are by far a better team now and they done it whilst making a cool £20odd million profit. 

That's an okay window. Not a bad one I'll give you. Don't think they're any stronger though really.

[coolhandfox]

Solid 7 of 10 window, cover areas of weakness in the squad and improved it over all.

 

Larger net spend the usual, and no big name departures.

 

Chop some deadwood, which is alway good, especially Ghezzel.

 

Still amaze me every window, the number of City fans convinced we are going to spend big.

 

We do practical not sexy.

 

As Everton have show you can blow the family savings on big signings but it come back to bite you on the ass if you get it wrong.

[Spudulike]

7 hours ago, KFS said:

Came here to post this. Just spat my drink out reading they signed Rondon. Wtf  

Rondon caused Wes and Huth more problems than any other striker. He out muscled our defence on several occasions and in particular that 2-2 home draw against WBA in 2016 when we came away thinking we had blown it. 

[Richard]

1 hour ago, Bert said:

They’ve signed Jadon Sancho who is gonna be one of the best wingers in the world. One of the best centre halves in the world and arguably the greatest player of all time who shows no signs of slowing down. They’ve had the best window by far. 
 

With us, I’d go 7.5/10. Signed some experience and some exciting young unproven players.  No real marquee signing or anything like that but that’s not what we are about. 

And yet they still play have a midfield of McTominay and Fred. They’ve signed big names who’ll sell shirts, get investors excited and get the stock price up but they have bought what they actually need. 
 

They’re relying on Ronaldo’s cult of personality to deliver them something. 

[Scotch]

As far as our window goes... 8/10.

 

We added quality depth to our squad, which was our major issue but in my opinion failed to improve our starting 11 in the only position we really needed to which was on the right wing. 

 

We now have great options up front, on the LW, CM, Full back and CB (when everyone is fit) but still lack on that aforementioned wide right position, assuming that Lookman will be mostly utilised on the left. 

 

Probably more important, we've kept hold of all our main stars so all in all, a very solid window from us that I think was overshadowed by 'Lil Wes' injury.  

[Xen]

Agreed with a 7/10.

 

We were already a very solid XI, but we had big gaps in the squad beyond that which have cost us in recent years. By and large those have been addressed, and we've even got a player in Daka who at first glance looks to be everything we could ask for in a Vardy replacement; lets hope he can deliver on that early promise. Sure, we didn't get the 'big' RW signing we've been crying out for but we've kept our entire first XI intact for the first time in years so funds were always going to be at least somewhat limited, and Lookman may well prove to be the solution for that spot. I know its a bit of a contentious one but now that we have Bertrand and when Justin is back we'll have 5 top-quality PL fullbacks, so Ricardo might well edge further up the pitch as well. Either way, we'll have options that don't involve playing Perez out of position on the pitch wing, which can only be a good thing.

 

We do look a bit threadbare at CB going into the international break, but that's an unfortunate set of events and there's only so much you can do to mitigate that without overloading the squad. Fofana getting injured like that couldn't be foreseen and then we have Evans/Justin who should hopefully both be back in the next couple months, so hopefully we can make do until then. We may need to bite the bullet and strengthen in January/next summer if Evans can't keep up with the pace anymore, though.

 

On paper Man Utd probably had the strongest window, but as @Richard said their midfield is still bang average. Their investors will be happy though. Bit of a wildcard answer but Crystal Palace have had a reasonably solid window as well, given that they released/ended contracts with a ridiculous number of players after last season but they've recruited smartly and on a modest budget, too. Doubt that they'll pull up any trees this season but given that they could have been near-certs for relegation, they might surprise a few.

[BenTheFox]

Chelsea have come out of this with the most complete squad so I had to vote for them. 

[Babylon]

Tell you when I’ve seen them play.

[Scotch]

Man City, for me had one of the worst Windows. 

 

IMO, their weak points were LB and Striker and they didn't address either. Instead they signed a very good attacking midfielder when they already had options there. 

 

Good for the rest of the league but baffling from their standpoint. 

[AKCJ]

Don't think you can call it more than a 6/10 personally considering we've not improved the starting XI or signed a right winger. Those had to be the main objectives this year.

 

I think Daka and Soumare are good signings that will have a good future at the club though.

[FoxFossil]

Interesting same discussion on R5 live last night. Never mentioned us  but at the end said  'but ofcourse Leicester quietly improved their squad with players who we all will be saying Wow about  later in the season.'

Let's hope they're right.

[StriderHiryu]

17 minutes ago, Babylon said:

Tell you when I’ve seen them play.

This is a very fair statement!

 

On paper it could be a brilliant window. We've probably reinforced every position we needed with right winger being the Elephant in the room. We've only lost Dennis Praet who I rate as a quality player but Brendan wasn't playing him, and with the emergence of KDH probably isn't such a big loss.

 

But as it stands until these players play 20-30 games we can't really judge them. Many of them look very promising; Bertrand, Daka, Soumare especially. But if they all turn out to be Slimani / Hernandez / Kapustka tier, then the window will have been squandered. My gut feeling is more of them will turn out to be successes than failures though, so overall I'd give us an 8/10 as it stands. Acid test will probably come in the Europa / Cup games when we largely play our second team. Last season the second team was mediocre, so for real improvement to have been made that second string need to be winning games to show they aren't just backups but actually pushing the first team for their places. Brendan also needs to be braver with the squad, we've carried Maddison hard this season when we should be using our squad to bring someone else on instead to dominate games.

 

To have improved our window, it I would like to have seen us improve our starting 11 as well as our squad. I am coming round on Lookman and given he was signed on loan is a no risk signing. But a top class insider right forward is the signing we needed to go up another level. Being linked to David Neres was so exciting, even if he would have been a bit of a gamble to get.

 

I'm worried about West Ham and to an extent Tottenham too though. West Ham had a good window and already smashed us. Their squad isn't as deep as our, but they did a good job. Zouma was a great signing I think. And Spurs kept Kane and Son, and those two are probably among the top 10 players in the league. Both those teams could stop us getting 5th again if we don't get our act together!

 

 

Edited 1 September 2021 by StriderHiryu

[StriderHiryu]

 

Interesting to see this chart this year. I think this is our highest ever net spend? Mainly because this season we didn't sell anyone.

 

Seeing Arsenal top of that list and seeing what they brought is mental. 

[Fox92]

1 hour ago, Chocolate Teapot said:

People voting villa had the best window?

I did purely because Ings is a good proven goalscrorer which can be the difference between winning and drawing games. 

 

Same for Chelsea too who added the missing striker they needed.

Edited 1 September 2021 by Fox92

[Fox92]

I don't think ours was great. We've added depth but we still miss a right winger and that will prove in some games.

[matty98]

I think we had an okay window, but nothing great tbh. We've brought in some good squad players but considering our net spend I'd like to think we would've improved the starting 11 in atleast 1 position.

 

[Guest Chocolate Teapot]

4 minutes ago, Fox92 said:

I did purely because Ings is a good proven goalscrorer which can be the difference between winning and drawing games. 

 

Same for Chelsea too who added the missing striker they needed.

With dreadful knees for 30m on a 120k a week contract. He'll need replacing in a year.

Edited 1 September 2021 by Chocolate Teapot

[Fox92]

3 minutes ago, Chocolate Teapot said:

With dreadful knees for 30m on a 120k a week contract. He'll need replacing in a year.

Yeah but if his goals get them top 6 then it's worth it.

[StanSP]

Daka

 

Chelsea 

 

Depth

 

 

I think we'll look back on the Daka signing (when Vardy starts to play less) and thank our stars for that kind of planning. Just got such a good feeling he'll be quality for us. 

 

Chelsea signing Lukaku (and did they get Niguez in the end?) really improves their striker option over Werner and puts them as one of the challengers for the title. I'm not a fan of how much they and the Manchester clubs can all spend but one thing it hopefully will give us is a proper title race with more than just one or two teams in. It's been a procession for one club or another for too many seasons recently. 

 

 

As for our depth, it's something we've wanted to improve on for ages and last season emphasised that in bad circumstances. Our squad, even when 95% fully fit is really strong and should have us properly contending for another trophy. Fingers crossed! 

[Guest Chocolate Teapot]

3 minutes ago, Fox92 said:

Yeah but if his goals get them top 6 then it's worth it.

When have Danny Ings' goal ever got a side more than mid table?

[Pliskin]

**** sake, some of you… “not great window” what were you expecting? Us to battle city for Grealish? United for Ronaldo? Send Rudkin to the depths of the Amazon rain forest to find the next big thing kicking a bison’s left testicle around on a beach…… 

 

We’ve had a solid window, we’ve added some much needed depth to the team (which has also added quality) we’ve bolstered the defence and we’ve potentially found the Vardy replacement. 
 

Yes we could have done with a RW, however, I think it is clear the club are looking for a talent that needs work, someone whose shown flashes of brilliance that they can mould, which we tried with Under, and are now looking at trying with Lookman. If he hits the ground running, and we allow him to fulfil his potential it could prove to be a sublime bit a business, but like all signings time will tell.

 

We’ve probably spent over what we would have ordinarily liked, and haven’t shipped many out, we’ve not lost any key players and the biggest complaint from last season has been addressed in the depth.

 

Two back to back top 5 finishes and an FA cup would suggest the club know what they’re doing. Just remember where we were back in 2004…… we will have another good season, and potentially achieve something else special too. Just get behind the lads and support them.