- Oct 2, 2004
- 48,337
- 47,614
- Staff
- #21
I couldn't believe the negativity on here this evening.
I think it's been an excellent window.
(1) We managed to keep all our best players: Modric, Bale and Van der Vaart. This was despite not having Champions League football to offer and in the face of intense interest - and general expectation we would sell - in relation to Modric. Great credit to Levy here for not giving in.
(2) With a strong team that managed to finish fourth and fifth in the last two seasons, we still managed to improve our first eleven considerably with the addition of three key players in Friedel, Parker and Adebayor. A more consistent, reliable goalkeeper; a tough Footballer of the Year midfielder, who will drive the team on in key matches; and the kind of complete striker we've been crying out for. Great signings.
(3) We managed to get great money for some players who wouldn't have featured in our first eleven this year - Palacios, Crouch, Hutton, O'Hara, Keane - and to temporarily offload others on expensive wages - Jenas, Bentley. We made a significant profit in doing this, which can only be good for the club.
It wasn't a perfect window of course - it never is - I would have liked if we could have signed Cahill and would have preferred to offload Pav rather than Crouch. But it was a damn good window overall. Particularly when you consider Arsenal are massively weakened - anyone thinking Arteta and Benayoun are adequate replacements for Fabregas and Nasri are kidding themselves - and when so many of Liverpool's signings (Henderson, Adam, an aging Bellamy) are of questionable value. And when you consider these two latter sides will be our main rivals for a fourth place finish, I'm fairly optimistic anyway.
Good post. I think although alot of us are disappointed it's important to see the positives as well. Added on to the list above I'd have the signings of Ceballos and Coulibaly showing that we're looking to the future as well as the present.
I think what people will find disappointing is that the money was (or should have been) there to make it a really good window and there are a couple of areas where we pretty clearly need strengthening.
But que sera sera. Hopefully come December we'll have strung a few results together and everything will be looking rosey.