Yeah, there's been a lot of this in the thread. Seems like people are rating how ready our squad is for a top 7 (Europe) challenge rather than on what's been achieved by the club over the summer transfer window. Point is, the club haven't publicly said anything about the target being top 7, that's just what people are hopng for based on our post Christmas form and our owners' obvious wealth.
I agree the squad is probably not quite strong enough yet to realistically expect us to qualify for Europe at the end of the season, but with a little bit of luck who knows.
Purely looking at the transfer window though, we've strengthened very significantly, signing four players who go straight into the first XI, two of whom at an age and with the pedigree where they could become long term stalwarts as the club aims to eventually compete with the very best. Enormous progress has also been made off the field with two major appointments laying very solid foundations for long term commercial and sporting success. I give it 9/10, with my main gripe being that we haven't managed to recoup any money from our rejects, but I guess this just goes to show how bad our squad was this time last year.
It's important to remember that all this has been achieved by the owners spending their own money, which is something they didn't have to, and at a time where the club cannot yet compete with the clubs that can offer elite players CL football and title challenges.
I for one am very glad with the way the new owners are building this club from the ground up in a patient and intelligent way without falling in the obvious traps of signing big name past it players on far too much money. If we carry on as we are it won't be long at all before we'll be in Europe and challenging for CL.
