tajjuk

I think, a bit like us before we picked up some points, they actually haven't won in something like 12 stretching back to last season. They really fell away last year after looking like they might even challenge top 4 but at least top 6. They have not particularly had that tough games either Bournemouth, Newcastle, Leeds and Fulham, only really Spurs away is a tough one. I think Jimenez is on a long goal drought, but I feel he was struggling for goals last time we played them and he scored after Bednerak tried to wrestle on the halfway line and failed letting him run clear. They do have their new striker but seeing as he only joined earlier this week he might not start.

100%, some of the signings we have made this summer could potentially set up the club for years of progress. I can see the likes of Lavia or ABK going for BIG fees, that we can potentially re-invest well. Hopefully we can get back to Koeman/Poch levels and possibly emulate what Leicester have done over the last few years (but avoid the slump they got into this last 12 months). Sell one big player a year, use the money to invest in top talent. Turn ourselves into THE destination for young players in the PL, the Dortmund of the PL.

All players do that anyway, talk up the new club, often talking BS. Pretty much every Everton signing talks about what a big club they are and they have been crap for years and years. It's all just PR nonsense for the fans. Also 'big club' itself is largely nonsense, players generally care about money, playing in Europe and chance to win trophies. (and the level of the league they play) Hence why you see players move from traditional 'big' European clubs, even ones playing the in Champs league for mid table PL clubs. Fans argue about the 'bigger club' nonsense, generally when they have nothing good to shout out about their club.

IIRC we underperformed our XG by over 10. So generally we created more than we scored but just didn't finish chances. Though certainly you could argue that now we might not only create more chances (thus are our average strikers and attacking mids should score more) but we should be tighter at the back and concede less. We were a weird one last year, which is probably why Ralph looks so stressed most of the time and it's good he's got some more backroom help I think to try to figure it out, we were at times excellent and at times woeful. Defensively we had periods of imperious defending and had some great defensive performances, then had other games where we conceded 5 or 6 but looked all at sea. If you look at our goals against, often it was 0-1 conceded or like 3-4-5 conceded. Add in that we didn't consistently take our chances, that is why we were 15th, not say 10th. So we needed to improve both ends of the pitch really, take more chances, and defend better. We have clearly improved defensively, whether we have improved attacking wise remains to be seen but I don't see us being much worse considering as Lighthouse says we are talking about just 7 goals from Broja and Long. So the defensive improvements alone should be enough IMO to put us further up the table. You could then argue that a fit, on form Ings like striker might push us into like top 7-8 contention but we couldn't find the player. So really we are looking at attacking wise whether a more on form Adams, a changed position Armstrong, plus the additions of Aribo and Mara will add more goals. But I think it's pretty clear that defensively we are looking better and will pick up more points than last year because of that.

Devil's advocate but the player we were going big for wasn't a striker. So either at some point we decided we couldn't finds a clear upgrade striker for our budget or we changed the plans and decided Che was going to be the main forward and wanted to improve the people just behind him. Gakpo isn't a no.9, never really has been (though you'd think with his physicality he could play there) he plays wide, predominantly from the left, so he was looking like an upgrade on A.Armstrong.

9/10 for me, if we'd got Gakpo in it would have probably been 11/10. How can we complain though at a window that has seen us spend over £70 million, with no major sales to fund it, that has improved almost every area of the team and seen us pick up a huge amount of talented youngsters. We even got one of our most promising academy players back as an extra little bonus. Plus quite a few of the 'old guard' are now gone or should be gone, probably quite a lot of big wages off the books now with the likes of Redmond, Walcott etc. having their contracts running out. This is the window we have been waiting for, for about 4-5 years. Only thing we need is that attacker so I am hopeful we might go big if the chance is there in Jan (plus we need that new Salisu contract).

Excellent window, shame the big attacking signing didn't come off, looks like Leeds basically ruined it for us and then pretty much got their karma straight away with that Marseille player. The most important thing for me was the intention, that we were willing to spend in that £30-40 million bracket for the right player, as others have said we have a weird season coming up with a world cup bang in the middle of it and that potentially could lead to a very interesting January window, so we will see what happens. But I still reckon that statement record signing is coming, be it in Jan or next summer. I mean end of the day we have had an around £75 million spend this summer, most we have spent for ages AND have not needed to sell anyone really to do that.

Maybe he was just happier being close to his family, home and his mates. Good to see the lad realised that some things are more important than money, I'd presume but I don't know, that Chelsea's academy set up is bigger than ours? Maybe a bit overwhelming for him.

They will need about £160-200 million to buy them all back, I think the buy back clauses are north of £40 million, if not £50 million in the case of Lavia and Bazunu.

He always struck me as a similar sort of player to Eric Dier, not really good enough defensively as a centre-back, not particularly good enough attacking wise to be in midfield.

Your suggestion of 're-writing history' is complete nonsense however much you blither on about it. I think most people are just in agreement that signing the right player is more important than just signing a player and if we can't get out targets its hardly the end of the world or a disaster.

Great servant to the club and wish him all the best. Can't begrudge him a move home either, closer to family etc. I think fans sometimes forget players are people too and not all transfers are for sporting or financial reasons.

Need and want are a completely different thing though. We want a player clearly, but do we desperately need one that we just buy whatever we can find on deadline day?clearly not and that would be silly. We have plenty of options for the positions and have brought in two new attacking players (Mara and Aribo) plus other players have shown signs of improvement (i.e. Armstrong). Would a big name quality attacker be great? Of course it would and the club have clearly tried, at the same time if doesn't happen its clearly not a disaster and the window has still been excellent IMO.

Also Ballard needs a pathway, the kid clearly is going to be about the first team this year and is highly rated. Plus it seems A.Armstrong has evolved from a striker to a wide attacker and has impressed in that role. We seemingly have shifted from a front two (in either the 4-2-2-2 or 5-3-2) to more having a 1, with more players playing off. So for the striker position you have Che, Mara, Armstrong, and possibly Ballard, with probably Aribo able to do a job there as well. Then behind the striker we have A.Armstrong, S.Armstrong, Mo, Aribo, Djenepo, JWP being possibly involved there as well, plus currently Walcott in the building and the club seemingly looking to add one more big name in Gakpo, and the young kid from Man City. The squad is currently a bit bloated, it's got 27 first teamers and we are supposedly adding AMN, plus the two youngsters from City, plus rumours of another centre-back AND they were intending to add a marquee attacking signing, pushing it to 32. Plus we are supposed to have a pathway for the younger players to come through. Yes hopefully Bednerak, Stephens and the GK are reported to be on their way out, but we still have the likes of Walcott, Redmond, Valery, with nothing rumoured at the moment.

Surely the national team manager would want his players playing at the highest level? Did Leeds do something to van Gaal when he was Utd manager? Anyway, do we know where Rasmus is? Seemingly where he is, is where the deals are being done. He was supposedly talking to Benfica and was supposedly talking to PSV, so if he's jumped off somewhere else that might show where the next player is.

Chelsea and Utd are panic buying and the people they are buying from know it. I like Antony but I don't think he is going to make a dramatic difference to that team, is he massively better than a Sancho? no I don't think so. A lot of these clubs seem to have no real plan at the moment. We seemingly do, so whilst I would love us to break our record transfer today and sign an attacker, if the right player is not there for the right price then it's more sensible to hold fire. Like you say we can't just spend £40 million on a player willy nilly, we have to be very sure the player is right for us.

Agree, I think we had a deal all ready to go and then Leeds came in to try to gazump us, so PSV jumped on them because they were paying more but the player didn't want to go to Leeds. PSV likely now saying he is staying because we won't pay as much as Leeds were going to pay.

It does seem we had two targets in Ramos and Gakpo that we thought we could stretch our budget to and were worth stretching for, but their clubs have basically ending up wanting a lot more money.

Could just be an angle to get Saints to pay more, considering Leeds offered more. Hope we have a plan B though, we were planning to spend £30 million plus on an attacker today, wonder if we will.

I mean what a summer, let's not forget as well a pretty much whole new coaching team, a new head of recruitment, a decent amount of points from a tough start of games AND we still have Tino to come back to improve the squad.

So with Gakpo potentially being a fee around £30 million, that would take our spending to £80 million NET, with whatever we are spending on the two City youngsters, PLUS two players on loan with options to buy? Insane if this all happens. 11 players potentially coming in.

Yeh said earlier seems an odd one considering they bought him for £15 million and now seemingly are letting go on loan with a potential loss. Can only think financial issues, the French league TV deal causing problems?

Feel that would be an odd one, he only signed for them last summer and for £15 million, with a 5 year contract so you'd think he'd be expensive.

50 million Euros is way above any other sale out of that league that hasn't come from Ajax and pretty much all those players Ajax have sold were proven Champions league players. Record sale for PSV is Mephis Depay who was around 34 million Euros, so this looks likely a record sale for them if it gets to around 40 million. £30-35 million would also be a record for us by far.

Wonderkid FC. They are pretty much just doing the Football Manager blueprint, buy every wonderkid you can find. Thing is as well only some of these need to come off as we are likely to be turning £10 million players into £40-50-60 million players, do that 3-4 times and we have the finances to compete.