Going to write that vent. @Kanji This is just my own personal view, not claiming these are the thoughts of others and if others think I'm talking utter garbage feel free to call it as such and we can debate it. May even cheer me up a bit. But I can’t shake this feeling at this current moment in time. Sign someone and I’ll probably change, such is the fickle nature of football fandom. It’s negative unfortunately though I do think that many of my feelings are based on decent(ish) foundations. Here we go, HTT-esque.
I don’t think that this current window or the 2 previous to it have been very good. I think we’ve lacked boldness for want of a better word; summer 2023 we tried to reinforce what worked in 2022/23 rather than look to augment what we had and give us something different to allow us to play and win matches in different ways. Whether that was an attacker to allow us to play between the lines, a more designated defensive midfielder to give us more control especially away from home and allow Bruno further up the pitch more often etc - numerous options that we chose not to go for.
In January we were stretched for injuries admittedly, though we didn’t sell Trippier for a fee that we just won’t get the chance to take again for a soon-to-be 34 year old. We also chose not to sign a goalkeeper despite the clear hindrance Dubravka was to our defensive play last season. Almiron this season as well, we'd do incredibly well to get north of £10m for him.
This summer window still has time before the deadline, but we had the PSR issues sorted at the end of June. We are now at the end of August and still have not made a signing that improves the first XI. All the while the teams expected to be around us: Chelsea, Spurs, West Ham, Villa, Brighton have all improved their XIs from last season and look better for it. If we don’t sign anyone else this window has been a failure; no first XI additions/upgrades for 2 windows would be pure stagnation. Sign a CB, fine. Sign a RW, good. Sign both, fantastic. It doesn’t look like the latter will happen despite how imperative it looked once the FT whistle went at Brentford in May. In addition, regarding Marc Guehi, £65m+ is totally over paying imo and when we’ve been notoriously hamstrung by PSR recently I’ve been puzzled as to why there has been no reliable rumours of us chasing players overseas outside of Thiaw and the total non starter of Tapsoba. European markets have more value for money and don’t have their chairmen hopping onto TalkSport to talk about how their players are superstars, so I don’t understand why there’d be a reluctance to explore that market. Tosin signed for Chelsea on 1 July so we’d have had since then to look elsewhere if CB is where we’ll spend our money this window and we still don’t have one 4 and a half days before the deadline. And the RW issue has been talked about many times before; that Murphy and Almiron are still our only options there in the 2024-25 season is genuinely vexing.
I don’t think it's unreasonable to say that these windows backfired last season and threatens to this as well. A big part of it was sheer bad luck last season with a number of injuries and in the case of Tonali. But we have largely an inability to change it up or find other ways to win matches and that leads to a vicious spiral, definitely in last season’s case: we run players into the ground and make injuries worse, which increasingly makes our style of play ineffective and it makes Howe look naive. That problem persists now, we look to play the same way and when that doesn’t work we look like we have no semblance of a tactical plan. That has remained in matches away from home for over 12 months. As has Barnes being unable to get starts ahead of Jacob Murphy when he has been fit since February/March.
On Howe himself, I love the bloke and has given me my best and favourite ever days following this club. But if I’m being brutally honest I’m a lot less confident now than I was 12 months ago that he’s going to be an elite manager that consistently has us in the top 6. I absolutely pray I’m wrong about that but the way we played yesterday, continuing our largely crap away performances from last season into this and the general lack of excitement about the season gave me an ominous feeling personally.
All of that has blended into how I feel at this current moment in time: I feel like we’re stagnating. I also think it’s been understated just how important of a season this is for the club: this season will dictate where the project under PIF/Howe is going. If we don’t achieve European football I think then we’ll see the likes of Isak, Gordon and Bruno wanting to move on. They’re far better than a club that isn’t in Europe. And in Isak’s case particularly, he is quite literally irreplaceable. If come this season’s end we fail to achieve Europe or we’re at a point where we look adrift from it, as sacrilegious as it feels to type out, I think I’ll want a change of manager. And I think the club will too. I’m praying that it doesn’t come to that.
TLDR; I feel deflated. Sign a player or players and I likely won’t be.
