Transfer window rated out of 10

[claretonthecoast1882]

3/10

Impossible to give any higher, needed 2 more in the squad

[Hibsclaret]

I love all the comparisons to the likes of Brentford being creative in the market. I reckon they are one of the teams that will go down and that we will finish above. Buying the likes of Eriksen is a massive risk, much bigger than buying a striker with stats second only to Lewandowski in the Bundesliga.

The fact remains that we are less than half way through a season and have just potentially upgraded our forward line. Let’s get behind the team and we can stay up comfortably. I just don’t see us finishing below Watford, Norwich and Brentford and that’s before you factor in a few other big name teams with worse managers than ourselves and not much wriggle room.

Transfer window 5/10

[Firthy]

I think pathetic just about sums it it up, isn't even worth a zero score. I think we are worse off than before the window if that's possible. We've replaced Wood with Weghorst who is unproven in the Premier League and Vydra is out for the rest of the season. My score is based purely on the final results.

I know we got screwed by Orsic but even with his signing we still wouldn't have spent the profit from Wood's sale. It looks like Weghorst and Orsic were going to be our only signings which still wasn't enough. I really don't understand why we left it so late in the window to try and complete these deals with no plan B and virtually no other targets, even Tony had only 3 articles ready which meant we had one other target in midfield.

We supposedly had money for players before we even sold Wood and even after the Wood deal was completed we had enough time to look at other options. Knowing how hard the January window and with our previous failings in the transfer market I really thought we'd learnt from it but it seems we are naive as ever. I find it hard to believe that we couldn't get players from Milwal, Derby etc. who would improve our squad.

[claretspice]

I love all the comparisons to the likes of Brentford being creative in the market. I reckon they are one of the teams that will go down and that we will finish above. Buying the likes of Eriksen is a massive risk, much bigger than buying a striker with stats second only to Lewandowski in the Bundesliga.

The fact remains that we are less than half way through a season and have just potentially upgraded our forward line. Let’s get behind the team and we can stay up comfortably. I just don’t see us finishing below Watford, Norwich and Brentford and that’s before you factor in a few other big name teams with worse managers than ourselves and not much wriggle room.

Transfer window 5/10

Brentford sold no-one in the window and brought in someone who might just improve them, or at least produce the moments of quality to nick them 3-4 points between now and May. We lost a striker who has scored 10 goals a season consistently since he joined us, and signed a striker who might turn out to be better than Wood, but given Wood's consistent output over the last 4 years, just as easily might not. That's the point of comparison.

We certainly have to aim to finish above Brentford, but they're a long way ahead of us right now.

[jedi_master]

I could not rank it higher than 1, not sure how anyone can realistically.

We have sold one player for £25m and replaced him with another for £12m. We have made a £13m profit which will probably very useful considering the financial trouble we are apparently in.

We needed to be creative this window with 2 good loan players - that's what I had hoped for. I didn't want us spending loads because I think we're more than 75% chance getting relegated, and as a result don't want to exarcebate our financial situation by having spent another £20-30m we don't actually have on players who's value might nosedive/might get injured etc. That might sound defeatist but it was my stance coming into this window.

Two high quality loans (the likes of Ross Barkley should have been a day one of the window conversation with Chelsea to negotiate, he would have suited us perfectly) with obligations to buy ON SURVIVAL or similar, with loan fees our only definitive outlay would have suited us absolutely perfectly. Low risk, high reward - potentially.

My feelings are that there is a Hell of a lot of truth in the stories surrounding our financial situation - they haven't been remotely diffused by anything coming out of the club - and that Pace is probably hedging his bets on relegation and didn't want to spend much. Not good enough though when loans were absolutely possible. We needed two creative midfield/wing players to replace Cork and Gudmundsson and to get neither is not good enough by the man at the top.

It's been and done now, no point dwelling in the slightest as believe it or not IF we beat Watford this Saturday (hopefully with Weghorst breaking his duck early doors), it's game on. Pace has massive questions to answer and I would have to say my confidence in him is currently at 0/10, but that doesn't extend to the manager. I believe in him and the performance at Arsenal renewed that optimism. The odds are for sure stacked against us when trying to compete with a literal state owned cheat club, but I believe the manager will give it his very best. Who knows.

[Hibsclaret]

Brentford are 11 points ahead of us and we have 5 games in hand. In recent seasons we have gained 11 points in 5 games during January and February. Wood has never been anywhere near the second best striker in the league. I have absolutely no doubt that we will finish above Brentford. If we beat Watford we are 8 behind with 4 in hand, 3 of which are at home.

[burnley007]

A diabolical window.
The chairman should resign.

[CrosspoolClarets]

Important to remember this. That £13m profit from this window some are clinging to.. that’s already gone. As will whatever we get for Pope and Cornet in 5 months time. That’s how leveraged buyouts work, sell assets to service debt. Growing income was far fetched for us in the Prem, it’s ludicrous to even think it in the football league.

So even less than usual, there’s absolutely zero point doing those little ‘net spend’ calculations and working out how much we have to spend. The simple answer is, we’ll make a profit trading players every window until there’s nowt left to sell.

True, but what would happen if we hadn’t made that profit? Using that logic we would have had to sell another player to pay that debt or interest. It’s fantastic work even if it simply means we don’t need to sell anyone in the summer now.

That’s a different issue to strengthening midfield for which we believed funds were available before Wood went and we are all disappointed it wasn’t used.

[NottsClaret]

True, but what would happen if we hadn’t made that profit? Using that logic we would have had to sell another player to pay that debt or interest. It’s fantastic work even if it simply means we don’t need to sell anyone in the summer now.

We'll have to sell plenty in the summer. Pretty much anything that can be sold.

[ClaretPete001]

True, but what would happen if we hadn’t made that profit? Using that logic we would have had to sell another player to pay that debt or interest. It’s fantastic work even if it simply means we don’t need to sell anyone in the summer now.

That’s a different issue to strengthening midfield for which we believed funds were available before Wood went and we are all disappointed it wasn’t used.

I'm not convinced the £13 million will be used to fund debt while we are in the Premiership the profits cover the repayments. The issue is that the plan seems to be falling apart already. Who buys midfield players in January and who buys 29 year old players from the Bundesliga when the business model is to buy players at the bottom of the market and sell at the top.

Of course, sh*t happens but Wolfsburg have replaced an (alleged) problem with a 22 year old asset.

The point is that in football having money in the bank and not on the pitch is like a Taxi company having taxis in the rank and not on the road.

It's not good business.

[claretabroad]

I am bitterly disappointed. Our recruitment strategy is deeply flawed. Every supporter knew the holes in the squad at the end of summer and the end result of another failed transfer window is stagnation.

Ask yourself this question:
Are we less likely to be relegated because of this transfer window?

For me the needle has barely moved and squandering the opportunity of funds from the Wood sale is negligent. I understand that the owners tried to bring in players but I am judging them on what they actually achieved. The sum total of which is that we lost one starter, potentially upgraded them with a better player, and banked the difference. The rest of the tired, old, out of form, squad remains exactly the same. We are asking one player to turn around our form enough to get ahead of 3 other teams. That's a big, big ask.

I'd give this transfer window a negative grade if I could. Before the window I thought relegation a near certainty and that opinion stands. I really, really hope I am wrong. I want to be wrong. Sadly, the owners of our club have given me no reason to be optimistic.

1/10 purely because of the amount of money we got for Wood.

[Andreshotboots]

Awful window but who cares now, it's done and dusted.

We may only have a few Premier Leagues games left to enjoy now for a while unless a miracle happens so I'm bloody well making the most of them!!!

[IanMcL]

4/10

Was into minus after selling Wood and weakening squad. The value fir money replacement and possible impetus, adds value overall.

Sadly, no other strengthening, which was the aim during the window. I may have been generous, I am banking on goals from Weghorst.

We now rely on our trusted squad to stay free of injury and restore our survival hopes.

I believe they are most capable.

Up the Clarets

[RMutt]

It’s impossible to rate this window in isolation. I think most people are scoring it as a cumulative response to several poor windows. The more we need to recruit the more disappointed we will become because it just gets more and more difficult.
2/10 for me.
It seems losing Wood was a bit of a shock and we had probably done the work on mid field not up front. That which meant a slight change of tack and it seemed to throw us. That being said you would hope the windfall we got for Wood would have funded at least one mid fielder plus Weghorst.

[Buxtonclaret]

6.

25 million for Wood is the best piece of transfer business I can ever remember. And I remember we got 1.2 million for Wayne Thomas.

And I’m pretty optimistic that Weghorst will be an upgrade.

Thought we did pretty well out of the Andre Gray deals?

[Guller Bull]

3

1in 1 out

Bit of profit

Big holes

[fatboy47]

None of our best players left the club.

Although, with hindsight, Wood's departure probably prevented this.

Easy to believe our activity has been little more than window shopping.

2/10

[Sleeping Cat]

"None of our best players left the club."

No, just our top scorer for the last 4 years

Weghorst looks a very good signing (on paper at least) and a suitable replacement for Wood who I am excited about watching but like for like is the absolute minimum expectation when a player leaves. We failed in trying to strengthen the team elsewhere and therefore the window can only be rated poorly. 3/10

[KRBFC]

Even Garlick reinvested the Keane/Gray money.....

[Silkyskills1]

. I have absolutely no doubt that we will finish above Brentford.

Just curious as to what criteria you are basing this on. Personally, I'm unable to find anything to support your undeniable optimism.

[rufus lumley]

10

[GaryClaret]

Yep what claretspice said. 2/10

I am still so disappointed but it’ll be nice to actually go to a game on Saturday. We can finally deal with the reality instead of going over and over the theory on here.

[Hibsclaret]

Just curious as to what criteria you are basing this on. Personally, I'm unable to find anything to support your undeniable optimism.

Criteria
We haven’t played half a season yet
We haven’t finished below them for, probably, about 30 years
They have 11 points from their last 16 games and the promotion bubble has burst
We generally finish our seasons better than we start them
We have a better team
We have a better manager
Not sure if you need any more

[Swizzlestick]

A generous 3. Good money for a listless Wood and replaced him with a very capable player, managed to keep the other big hitters like Tarkowski. Other than that - desperate. It is actually criminal that we didn’t bring a CM option in, properly criminal. This will be our undoing unfortunately. Looks like we dedicated too much to the Orsic deal and, possibly, the Ramsay one.

[warksclaret]

1 out of 10 for me, particularly as lessons have not been learned from previous years of doing your key business early. Very commendable of AP to be flying to Croatia on the Friday but that says very little about the rest of the recruitment staff. There were still 3 full days to get people in but to me no evidence of any real effort once Orsic had declined. No use of the loan market which might have been a way of tempting new players fearful of relegation. To me a complete shambles on the back of previous ones, Its as if we are resigned to relegation and it was decided to keep the balance of the Wood money. I am not surprised the way it went, but very disappointed. Would love to have been a fly in the offices in the last week of January to get the real picture. Seems like the new company has had a shake-up of some of the loyal staff internally that have served the club, but for me the real overhaul is in the team that identifies, approaches and engages new players to the club, because at present our ranking in this field with all other PL clubs is on a par with our League position.Maybe by nature they go hand in hand

[Wokingclaret]

Criteria
We haven’t played half a season yet
We haven’t finished below them for, probably, about 30 years
They have 11 points from their last 16 games and the promotion bubble has burst
We generally finish our seasons better than we start them
We have a better team
We have a better manager
Not sure if you need any more

I think their manager is doing fine, but still learning the division.
Their team has one thing we haven't....Pace
I think they will be fine, but time will tell.

[Cirrus_Minor]

I have kept out of discussions on transfers until today.

Positives - kept Tarkowski, McNeil and Mee

- brought in a new striker

Negatives - lost Wood
- Failure to further improve the squad at a time we really needed to.

Conclusion - Very poor. Will be difficult now to avoid relegation.

3/10

[KRBFC]

Criteria
We haven’t played half a season yet
We haven’t finished below them for, probably, about 30 years
They have 11 points from their last 16 games and the promotion bubble has burst
We generally finish our seasons better than we start them
We have a better team
We have a better manager
Not sure if you need any more

better team? my arse
11 points from their last 16, what do we have? 12 from 18.
better manager? Frank would get another PL job, Dyche wouldn't.

[Quicknick]

I agree with Hibs's argument.

5/10. If we'd signed Orsic it would be 8/10.

I think we will stay up.

[SGr]

It’s a 3. If that.

But you don’t get relegated because of one poor window. You get relegated because of multiple poor windows.

And from summer 2018 onwards…we’ve had loads.