Rate your transfer window

[Happy Blue]

OUT:- Sterling 50m, Jesus 47m, Zinchenko 31m, Fernadinho free, Steffen loan

IN:- Haaland 51m, Alvarez 15m , Phillips 44m, Ortega free, Gomez 11m, Akanji 15m

10 out of 10 Improved the squad with a low net spend, managed to keep Bernardo and signed 2 of the best strikers in the game along with some very decent squad players

 

We have lost some very good players this window, but i think the players we have replaced them with have made us stronger than last season. we still have a small squad but we have a lot of decent academy players to fill in, think we are not going to miss any of the players that have left, Fernandinho's legs had gone so Phillips will do a better job. Alvarez has the speed of Sterling, the work rate of Tevez and the finishing ability of Aguero, what an absolute steal for south Americas player of the year an upgrade on Sterling for me out wide and through the middle. Gomez looks like a decent player so far and can play midfield and striker too, LB is a new position for him. Ortega is better than Steffen, don't know much about Akanji but with our injury prone CB's and no academy player ready to step up in that position it was wise to add cover and finally Haaland, wow!!! 9 goals in 5 games, already breaking premier league records he makes scoring goals look so easy, he's too fast and strong for 99% of defenders to handle, probably the best player in football right now, very pleased with our window and haven't been this excited since we signed Robinho to see a City game 

[OrangeKhrush]

Outgoings: Lots of chumps that won't be missed.

Incomings: Targett (12.5m + add ons),  Nick Pope (9m), Sven Botman (35m), Aleksander Isak (58m + add ons)

I would say it has been about 7/10 pending any deadline day deals.   We worked far to slowly initially missing out on possible chances to steal Jack Harrison and a few others,  the persuit of Ekitike who screwed around with us in January was another waste of time.    We need a midfield playmaker or DM to allow Bruno to play as a playmaker and thus adding bench depth with Willock and Longstaff being good options to come off the bench or cover.    We also haven't really addressed the right sided problem,  Almiron and Murphy are not good enough to be starters or relied upon consistently,  Almiron may make a good bench option but Murphy needs to go. 

[Happy Blue]

??? 

 

[Cicero]

Under the circumstances, 8/10. 

We were in a vulnerable state before Boehly took over and a lot of things needed to be done. Other clubs had a head start given we were in limbo from Feb-June. Scatter gun approach by Boehly given Marina was let go. Love the ambition but it is clear as day this cannot happen again and a DoF is desperately needed. 

Sterling replaces Werner

Aubameyang replaces Lukaku

Koulibaly replaces Rudiger

Fofana replaces Christensen

Zakaria replaces Saul

Cucurella replaces Alonso

 

We then are adding Gallagher + Broja to the team, and have made purchases of young talents in Chukwuemeka, Casadei, Slonina, & Zakharyan. 

Had a slow start to the season but hoping (for Tuchel's sake) that with the team now settled form can recover. 

 

 

 

[Waylander]

@Cicero On paper good.

Expect us to pick up points once Kovacic is fit yet both Fofana and Auba should improve those chances.

Holding my breath on Auba until I see how it pans out, we have had a couple of managers bring back strikers from other clubs at an older age and they have not delivered, hopefully Auba is the exception.

[Happy Blue]

32 minutes ago, Cicero said:

Under the circumstances, 8/10. 

We were in a vulnerable state before Boehly took over and a lot of things needed to be done. Other clubs had a head start given we were in limbo from Feb-June. Scatter gun approach by Boehly given Marina was let go. Love the ambition but it is clear as day this cannot happen again and a DoF is desperately needed. 

Sterling replaces Werner

Aubameyang replaces Lukaku

Koulibaly replaces Rudiger

Fofana replaces Christensen

Zakaria replaces Saul

Cucurella replaces Alonso

 

We then are adding Gallagher + Broja to the team, and have made purchases of young talents in Chukwuemeka, Casadei, Slonina, & Zakharyan. 

Had a slow start to the season but hoping (for Tuchel's sake) that with the team now settled form can recover. 

 

 

 

Hadn't realised you have bought that many players  it will take time for all that to gel together 

[Stan]

Not good enough. 

[OrangeKhrush]

having been In Leicester fans situation many times under Mike Ashley, when you start a new season weaker than you ended the last season.

Leicester are in trouble no doubt

[Honey Honey]

I think we are looking at 8th based on what we've done. We are a player or two shy of a strong challenge for 6th. Maybe that will come in January. 

[Stan]

10 hours ago, Stan said:

Not good enough. 

Upgraded this to 'really fucking bad'. 

[OrangeKhrush]

15 hours ago, Cicero said:

Under the circumstances, 8/10. 

We were in a vulnerable state before Boehly took over and a lot of things needed to be done. Other clubs had a head start given we were in limbo from Feb-June. Scatter gun approach by Boehly given Marina was let go. Love the ambition but it is clear as day this cannot happen again and a DoF is desperately needed. 

Sterling replaces Werner

Aubameyang replaces Lukaku

Koulibaly replaces Rudiger

Fofana replaces Christensen

Zakaria replaces Saul

Cucurella replaces Alonso

 

We then are adding Gallagher + Broja to the team, and have made purchases of young talents in Chukwuemeka, Casadei, Slonina, & Zakharyan. 

Had a slow start to the season but hoping (for Tuchel's sake) that with the team now settled form can recover. 

 

 

 

I'm still of the view that Man U and Chelsea (outside Sterling) was spray and pray, no plan or strategy just throw the cash and see what sticks.

Cucarella wasn't really needed and Trossard would have been cheaper and better.

Koulibally bit of a legendary name but getting on, Pepe Cisse replaced him the last Afcon due to injury and impressed.  Signing expensive old players to replace younger makes no sense.

Wesley Fofana, makes sense if you are assessing from 2020/2021.  his 2021/2022 season was meh.  worth it at around 40m but 80m was severe overpay.

Bremer would have made more sense.

Zakaria I know FM22 rates him but nothing I see on stats suggests he is anything but panic reinforcements for Gallagher being suspended.

Auyabameng, seriously the guy arteta flogged due to attitude problems.

Chelsea started the summer linked to Kounde, Botman, Nunez, Isak,Sangare, Tchouameni.   its a bit meh

[OrangeKhrush]

3 hours ago, Honey Honey said:

I think we are looking at 8th based on what we've done. We are a player or two shy of a strong challenge for 6th. Maybe that will come in January. 

8th would be good.   super thin in midfield and out wide.   when Wilson returns I expect him and isak to play as Almiron does nothing for me.   Substitute level player.   isak and Wilson up top with ASM free or roaming role.

[RandoEFC+]

Could have done with one more creative attacking player but we got players in the right positions apart from that and have managed to shove liabilities like Keane, Gomes and Rondon out of the pecking order. On paper it's a pretty good window but it's hard to give a rating out of ten until we've seen how Onana, McNeil, Maupay, etc., actually turn out in the long run.

[Rick]

We let go of Mane, Origi & Minamino. We brought in Nunez, Carvalho & Arthur. Not seen anything from Arthur obviously, and only snippets from the other two. Can’t judge their impact yet, but we needed more help in the middle. Time will tell. 

[Stan]

22 minutes ago, OrangeKhrush said:

Cucarella wasn't really needed and Trossard would have been cheaper and better.

 

They play in different positions?

Cucurella is brought in as competition to Chilwell (guessing there's fitness/recovery concerns after his long-term injury) as well as a replacement for Alonso. That's not a bad buy and I can tell why they needed him.

Trossard plays is a left winger (not a left wing-back) and they just signed Sterling there so that would be unreasonable use of cash (not as if they're short of it anyway). 

24 minutes ago, OrangeKhrush said:

Wesley Fofana, makes sense if you are assessing from 2020/2021.  his 2021/2022 season was meh.  worth it at around 40m but 80m was severe overpay.

 

meh? he had a broken leg and only played 7 games following his recovery . Where is your valuation of £40m from? Once again you totally miss the point of the buying club dictating the value.

 

[CaaC (John)+]

Happy that the 2 Disco Dancers in Voodoo Pogba & mobile phone maniac Lingard have gone (thank fuck) but will hang tight in praising the arrivals until we wallop some team with more than one goal a game, could still do with someone up front to pop the goals in, Rashford is better playing out wide and young Elanga is only at the fledgling stage, forget about Ronaldo, for now. 

Heard through the grapevine that the Glazers are tabling a £400 million offer to City for Haaland.......

My alarm clock woke me up at 05.30. 

[OrangeKhrush]

1 minute ago, Stan said:

They play in different positions?

Cucurella is brought in as competition to Chilwell (guessing there's fitness/recovery concerns after his long-term injury) as well as a replacement for Alonso. That's not a bad buy and I can tell why they needed him.

Trossard plays is a left winger (not a left wing-back) and they just signed Sterling there so that would be unreasonable use of cash (not as if they're short of it anyway). 

meh? he had a broken leg and only played 7 games following his recovery . Where is your valuation of £40m from? Once again you totally miss the point of the buying club dictating the value.

 

Trossard is playing wing back for Brighton now and played there when Cucarrella was out.   Trossard can play WB or Wing

[Stan]

34 minutes ago, OrangeKhrush said:

Trossard is playing wing back for Brighton now and played there when Cucarrella was out.   Trossard can play WB or Wing

Predominant position is LM/left-wing.

I bet if they signed him, and not Cucurella who actually is a LB/LWB, you'd wonder why they spent so much on a player who's natural position isn't a LWB...

[Waylander]

1 hour ago, OrangeKhrush said:

I'm still of the view that Man U and Chelsea (outside Sterling) was spray and pray, no plan or strategy just throw the cash and see what sticks.

Cucarella wasn't really needed and Trossard would have been cheaper and better.

Koulibally bit of a legendary name but getting on, Pepe Cisse replaced him the last Afcon due to injury and impressed.  Signing expensive old players to replace younger makes no sense.

Wesley Fofana, makes sense if you are assessing from 2020/2021.  his 2021/2022 season was meh.  worth it at around 40m but 80m was severe overpay.

Bremer would have made more sense.

Zakaria I know FM22 rates him but nothing I see on stats suggests he is anything but panic reinforcements for Gallagher being suspended.

Auyabameng, seriously the guy arteta flogged due to attitude problems.

Chelsea started the summer linked to Kounde, Botman, Nunez, Isak,Sangare, Tchouameni.   its a bit meh

Yep on paper great yet caveats over most, Zakaria did his ACL.

Disagree on Cucurella, one of the reasons we are currently struggling is no decent cover when James is out. Also Cucurella gives Chilwell time to fully recover. 

 

[Dan+]

2/10. Embarrassing and a disgrace. We've weakened ourselves beyond any question at all. Didn't solve the winger issue again. Sold our keeper without replacing him. Lost Fofana.

Faes is literally the only positive you can say and even then that's still with the jury being massively out. Frankly a humiliation.

[OrangeKhrush]

1 hour ago, Dan said:

2/10. Embarrassing and a disgrace. We've weakened ourselves beyond any question at all. Didn't solve the winger issue again. Sold our keeper without replacing him. Lost Fofana.

Faes is literally the only positive you can say and even then that's still with the jury being massively out. Frankly a humiliation.

I am still shocked by the situation at Leicester and I think the financial issues are worse than many know about.   I don't think this is a bloated payroll thing but rather a shrinkage in assets,  the owners may have lost asset value and its now squeezing,  add the absence of European Football and the high payroll means the club has debt.   I don't foresee a situation where next season comes and Leicester are able to blow a ton of money again which again leads me to not understand why they would not cash in on a sellers market and try rebuild with young and cheap rather than run the risk of being near the bottom by January and the ability to "sell at what you value the player at" is gone as you have no leverage particularly over Tielemans and Maddison your two more immediate concerns. 

As a baseball man myself and supporting the A's its a constant compete cycle followed by a rebuild cycle,  which we have entered now,  coming off 5 seasons of competing we have had to trade all our best assets to restock the farm and system to rebuild to our next window.   We are not the Yankees or Dodgers that can go an pay long term bloated contracts for free agents,  with a payroll around 82 million at best and currently around 22 million following the release of Andrus and Piscotty we have about 60 million in flexibility but we also have arbitration players like Sean Murphy who will be a massive trade piece given he is the best calling catcher in baseball and now hits well, we should cash in on 3 years of cheap control for a premium position. 

Back to football,  Leicester should have rebuilt,  and I fear the gamble may backfire and you end up with less or worse going down. 

[Stan]

5 minutes ago, OrangeKhrush said:

I am still shocked by the situation at Leicester and I think the financial issues are worse than many know about.   I don't think this is a bloated payroll thing but rather a shrinkage in assets,  the owners may have lost asset value and its now squeezing,  add the absence of European Football and the high payroll means the club has debt.   I don't foresee a situation where next season comes and Leicester are able to blow a ton of money again which again leads me to not understand why they would not cash in on a sellers market and try rebuild with young and cheap rather than run the risk of being near the bottom by January and the ability to "sell at what you value the player at" is gone as you have no leverage particularly over Tielemans and Maddison your two more immediate concerns. 

 

Back to football,  Leicester should have rebuilt,  and I fear the gamble may backfire and you end up with less or worse going down. 

YES WE GET IT. YOU WANT US TO SELL OUR BEST ASSETS AND WEAKEN THE CLUB OVERALL. Jesus, you bang on about it more and more each week.

 

A rebuild could have also backfired. Huge change, a manager who doesn't know how to take us back to competing for Europe and generally just has lost the plot. Would you trust him with a rebuild, considering he's part of the reason we're in this mess? The players HE signed are a cause of the high payroll. Vestergaard, Bertrand, Soumare, Perez. Four examples. 

I swear you just bleat on and on without listening to what we respond to you with . 

Maybe we won't blow 'a ton of money' next summer. Is that what we usually do? No. It's not our 'model' to to do that. Rodgers was trusted in previous transfer windows to get players in to improve us. The players he has bought in have not done that. 

We can't just rebuild with all young and cheap players. Selling our best assets, for a club of our reputation (which has gone up in the past few years), is not the way to go. 

YOU think we should have rebuilt. That doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. I'd rather get rid of Rodgers and get a capable manager in place so we can start climbing up the table again.

Your sheer desperation to have wanted Tielemans and/or Maddison at Newcastle is clouding over what is actually going on at the club.

Why are you 'shocked' at what's going on at Leicester when myself and @Dan have quite clearly stated what's actually happening?

It is a bloated payroll. Our wage to turnover ratio is too high (105%). It needs to be reduced down to 70% over the next 3 years. That starts with getting rid of the deadwood and buying more wisely. It would make no sense to get rid of all our star assets, keep the deadwood and try and miraculously find enough 'young and cheap' players to also do a good enough job of getting us to where we want to be i.e. top 6/7. 

[OrangeKhrush]

1 minute ago, Stan said:

YES WE GET IT. YOU WANT US TO SELL OUR BEST ASSETS AND WEAKEN THE CLUB OVERALL. Jesus, you bang on about it more and more each week.

 

A rebuild could have also backfired. Huge change, a manager who doesn't know how to take us back to competing for Europe and generally just has lost the plot. Would you trust him with a rebuild, considering he's part of the reason we're in this mess? The players HE signed are a cause of the high payroll. Vestergaard, Bertrand, Soumare, Perez. Four examples. 

I swear you just bleat on and on without listening to what we respond to you with . 

Maybe we won't blow 'a ton of money' next summer. Is that what we usually do? No. It's not our 'model' to to do that. Rodgers was trusted in previous transfer windows to get players in to improve us. The players he has bought in have not done that. 

We can't just rebuild with all young and cheap players. Selling our best assets, for a club of our reputation (which has gone up in the past few years), is not the way to go. 

YOU think we should have rebuilt. That doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. I'd rather get rid of Rodgers and get a capable manager in place so we can start climbing up the table again.

Your sheer desperation to have wanted Tielemans and/or Maddison at Newcastle is clouding over what is actually going on at the club.

Why are you 'shocked' at what's going on at Leicester when myself and @Dan have quite clearly stated what's actually happening?

It is a bloated payroll. Our wage to turnover ratio is too high (105%). It needs to be reduced down to 70% over the next 3 years. That starts with getting rid of the deadwood and buying more wisely. It would make no sense to get rid of all our star assets, keep the deadwood and try and miraculously find enough 'young and cheap' players to also do a good enough job of getting us to where we want to be i.e. top 6/7. 

Your payroll will drop a lot this season and next.   Tielemans is going and Maddison may not want to gamble his future on maybe there is money to spend,  he is 26 this season and will not sit around unless he agrees to a buy out clause which he thinks is realistic. 

Dead wood is not easy to move,  by virtue of the fact that nobody wants to buy dead wood.   We term this eating the contract.     With Fofana gone and Tielemans to go,  you may have a big reduction but then you need to add the new players and possible contracts to players like Harvey Barnes and Drewsbury Hall who are good options to build off. 

[Redcanuck]

5 hours ago, OrangeKhrush said:

I'm still of the view that Man U and Chelsea (outside Sterling) was spray and pray, no plan or strategy just throw the cash and see what sticks.

Cucarella wasn't really needed and Trossard would have been cheaper and better.

Koulibally bit of a legendary name but getting on, Pepe Cisse replaced him the last Afcon due to injury and impressed.  Signing expensive old players to replace younger makes no sense.

Wesley Fofana, makes sense if you are assessing from 2020/2021.  his 2021/2022 season was meh.  worth it at around 40m but 80m was severe overpay.

Bremer would have made more sense.

Zakaria I know FM22 rates him but nothing I see on stats suggests he is anything but panic reinforcements for Gallagher being suspended.

Auyabameng, seriously the guy arteta flogged due to attitude problems.

Chelsea started the summer linked to Kounde, Botman, Nunez, Isak,Sangare, Tchouameni.   its a bit meh

 

I don't think United 's transfer window was spray at pray at all.  They identified the positions that needed strengthening, Ranick said we needed 10 new players and we got 6.   Malacia, Martinez and Erikson were bought quickly, they were talking to Ajax about Anthony the whole window they were in talks with Casemiro a few weeks before the story broke.  Dubravka came out of the blue but United were looking at back up keepers the whole window, the problem was that not many keepers want to sit on the bench as a back up most of the season. 

How do I rate the window, probably six out of ten.  We did improve the team and got rid of a lot of excess baggage and salary.  Negatives, we didn't get de Jong and Casemiro and Anthony in a great window would have joined the team at the beginning of August.    We also didn't address our need for a right back , a striker and a replacement for de Gea.  But  January isn't to far away.

[Dan+]

4 hours ago, OrangeKhrush said:

I am still shocked by the situation at Leicester and I think the financial issues are worse than many know about.   I don't think this is a bloated payroll thing but rather a shrinkage in assets,  the owners may have lost asset value and its now squeezing,  add the absence of European Football and the high payroll means the club has debt.   I don't foresee a situation where next season comes and Leicester are able to blow a ton of money again which again leads me to not understand why they would not cash in on a sellers market and try rebuild with young and cheap rather than run the risk of being near the bottom by January and the ability to "sell at what you value the player at" is gone as you have no leverage particularly over Tielemans and Maddison your two more immediate concerns. 

As a baseball man myself and supporting the A's its a constant compete cycle followed by a rebuild cycle,  which we have entered now,  coming off 5 seasons of competing we have had to trade all our best assets to restock the farm and system to rebuild to our next window.   We are not the Yankees or Dodgers that can go an pay long term bloated contracts for free agents,  with a payroll around 82 million at best and currently around 22 million following the release of Andrus and Piscotty we have about 60 million in flexibility but we also have arbitration players like Sean Murphy who will be a massive trade piece given he is the best calling catcher in baseball and now hits well, we should cash in on 3 years of cheap control for a premium position. 

Back to football,  Leicester should have rebuilt,  and I fear the gamble may backfire and you end up with less or worse going down. 

Tend to agree with a lot of it but feel we've clearly had some important cogs of the machine missing to make it work. I used to have full faith in Leicester to lose a key player but improve the team despite this - we sold Mahrez but in the same window signed Maddison, Ricardo, Evans and Soyuncu, so while we never got a direct Mahrez replacement (and have failed for about the 8th window in a row to properly address this) we got better throughout the team without spending a great deal to do it.

Tielemans is gone on a free in a year and Maddison hasn't got ages left himself. But the problem is we're not functioning well enough to take these hits. We had no head of recruitment all summer and have brought in Martyn Glover from Southampton, who I believe has now started (he better be bloody good). So we've not been getting value for what we have spent and we're not getting anywhere near the best out of the players we do actually have.

I cannot believe Rodgers wasn't sacked today. He's taking the piss of the club now. He's actively working against the club to get that payoff, saying whatever he can in the process to save his own reputation which the usual suspects in the gullible media swallow hook line and sinker.

You've got to remember as well our owners made their money on duty free. If one industry is likely to be hit in the last two years then it's probably that. I've heard rumours that there are plans to sell up and I'm starting to think maybe that's the obvious conclusion in this. We need to somehow attract a bit more investment. We've made some daft deals but it's also quite hard to fathom how the likes of West Ham and Aston Villa can spend what they have done and be perfectly OK. It all feels very Everton of a year ago for us. You wonder if others are going to follow suit.

Problem with us now is our players values have depreciated. Our most valuable players now are probably Maddison and Barnes. It's absolutely unreal how much the value has dipped in just three years. Really does sum up how badly wrong we've got this.