Jump to content

January Window 2013 - how does it rate?


Belfast Mags

Recommended Posts

Well, what a month it has been.

I guess the real answer can only come at the end of the season when we see where we finish but in terms of actual players signed, it's been incredible.

Debuchy, MYM, Sissoko, Gouffran, Haidara and Mbabu, all through the door for little over a tenner, amazing business for our club.

The only blot on the copy book was not landing Remy but in all fairness there isn't much more we could have done to facilitate that going through, given what happened.

That said, it seems that whenever one door closes for us, another door opens, so I'm hopefull we'll be OK.

Can't recall being as pleased with a window as this, given the nature of our position.

 

How do you rate it? Did we do enough?

 

Link to post
Share on other sites

I'd have loved us to buy a genuinely exciting attacking player to take the pressure off Cisse and Hatem, but Gouffran may well surprise us all.

 

Aye, not sure Gouffran is the answer but liked what I saw of him on tuesday.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Wasn't happy to lose Ba but that was pretty much out of our control. He's not been replaced directly but I think we've got a decent number of attacking options albeit not proper centre forwards. Need to avoid injuries on that front, particularly to Cisse of course. I remain confident he'll bang them in with the kind of better service we saw at Villa.

 

Otherwise, it's been excellent. Yes, some of the players should have been in during the summer and would have made a big difference to where we are right now, but what's done is done and we can only hope the same mistake isn't made again.

 

Rating? 8/10. :thup:

Link to post
Share on other sites

8/10 for me as well. Would have been nice to get some striker cover in case Cisse picks up a knock but never expected us to bring in 3 players that would slot straight into the first team. Wasn't too fussed about the departure of Ba, got tired of hearing about the release cause to be quite honest.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Guest Bert Shaft

Disappointed Ba wasn't properly replaced.

Happy that Coloccini is staying for the time being.

Delighted with the signing of Sissoko and well happy with MBiwa and Debuchy.

Other signings OK.

Well happy that no significant players have left

 

Overall 8 out of 10.

 

Link to post
Share on other sites

9/10 if we signed another striker or even just another winger with a goal threat then it would have been 10.

 

Aside from that i couldn't have asked for anything more and we even got Xisco off the wage bill.

 

Yes its 6 months too late but i'm ecstatic with the business we have done, hopefully we won't just stand still and push on from here to prevent seasons like this happening again.

Link to post
Share on other sites

A quintet of what look like high-quality reinforcements, acquired for admirably economical sums, and each addressing specific squad weaknesses. What's not to like? They won't all work out, of course, but we've done well with these kinds of signings recently and I'm optimistic. It wasn't quite a perfect transfer window -- we could really have done with another goalscorer and maybe some centre-back cover -- but it was good beyond any reasonable expectation, and light years away from all the prophecies of tight-fisted doom on here.

 

8.5/10?

 

There really are no excuses for Pardew now, unless one makes an argument about the difficulties of bedding in so many new players blah blah, and I can imagine Ashley is thinking along the lines of, "right, I've backed you in every way possible – long contract, loads of players. Now it's time to justify my faith in you." Whether Pardew can do so or not is an argument for another thread, but I think it's interesting that Ashley has so clearly gone out and tried to give the manager exactly what he was asking for.

 

As for the way this was done, loads of preparatory work must gone before. It may be that recent results added a bit of urgency to the acquisition process (in another season, would we have forked out the extra 2.5 million to get Sissoko now instead of in the summer?), but even if it was a quick decision to reinforce so thoroughly, major homework on all these players must already have been sitting somewhere in the NUFC filing system. The club may look like a shambles sometimes, but in this respect we seem to be extremely well organised.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Crap, completely failed to build on our momentum and once again we'll fall short of where we want to be due to a lack of progress and strengthening to the squad. Happens most years but as usual we'll say we tried, what a pile of.....

 

Oh, right.

 

9/10, great signings.

Link to post
Share on other sites

We've had a good window when looking at what we've brought in but losing Ba was a blow unless others come up with the goals that we've lost.  I hoped we'd bring in a right back, we have.  I hoped we'd bring in a centre half, we have.  I hoped we'd bring in a forward, we have.  Sissoko is a massive plus for us and Haidara is a bonus that I didn't think we'd be looking for.

 

In short, players in 9/10, Ba out knocks between 1 and 3 off that depending on others getting the goals that we've lost.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...