How would you rate the Transfer Window?

[Paully]

https://theathletic.com/3549446/2022/09/02/newcastle-united-transfers/

 

"while loan bids for Christian Pulisic and Conor Gallagher of Chelsea and Arsenal’s Ainsley Maitland-Niles in part failed because the club are now seen as upwardly mobile and potential threats to the established order."

 

 

Edited September 2, 2022 by Paully

[Coffee_Johnny]

7 minutes ago, Paully said:

https://theathletic.com/3549446/2022/09/02/newcastle-united-transfers/

 

"while loan bids for Christian Pulisic and Conor Gallagher of Chelsea and Arsenal’s Ainsley Maitland-Niles in part failed because the club are now seen as upwardly mobile and potential threats to the established order."

 

 

 

Makes sense. Why help out the competition? We are now top six competitors and will take points of the best teams. More than anyone else, hope we piss on Chelsea’s aspirations. 

[NE27]

Upwardly mobile, threat, 

[Interpolic]

Looking forward to the inevitable few wins we'll pick up against that reprehensible set of clubs this season. 

 

I gave the window an 8. I'm delighted with each of the 4 signings as they all hugely improve the first team. But right wing in particular I'm not comfortable with - Almiron and Fraser would be fine as squad options but don't think either is good enough to be first choice.

 

There was a long time between the Botman and Isak signings, I really hope this stands us in good stead in future windows and we can act quickly to bring a RW and CM in. Hopefully we've planted the seed with a few clubs / players now (a la Botman) so the next window isn't such a grind in that respect. 

 

All good though, saw someone say in another thread there are only 13 games between now and January window and this is definitely a good enough squad to push on with until then. Just need some luck with injuries so we can see our best side! 

[The College Dropout]

36 minutes ago, Paully said:

https://theathletic.com/3549446/2022/09/02/newcastle-united-transfers/

 

"while loan bids for Christian Pulisic and Conor Gallagher of Chelsea and Arsenal’s Ainsley Maitland-Niles in part failed because the club are now seen as upwardly mobile and potential threats to the established order."

 

 

 

We need to develop better relatiionships with the likes of Real Madrid, Juventus, Atletico etc. That loan market needs to be used

[Guest HTT II]

On reflection I’ll change my rating from 6.5 to a 7/10, but my initial misgivings still stand and I reiterate that we now need to stop thinking - oh because we have spent money, signed players and are looking at quality players where as under Ashley we didn’t - that we should just be happy clappers.
 

That would be like being happy with not going down this season because we’ve went down twice under Ashley. We are a totally different club now, with huge ambition, huge wealth and now need to raise our own expectations in line with that, within reason of course.

 

My main disappointment is that we’ve strengthened an area we were strong in (defence) which is fine of course and although we’ve signed Isak, we knew from day one Wilson won’t play every game so we always needed another striker, we needed that last season even after signing Wood. We have failed to strengthen the midfield, however and rely on Bruno, ASAM and Joelinton being fit and getting the very best out of Frazer and Almiron for example who don’t produce many goals or assists.
 

It’s frightening to think if we get key injuries to those players, our attacking options are Frazer, Almiron and the likes of Murphy and Wood. We could have used the loan market, which we haven’t and although Pope is an upgrade on Dubravka, if he gets injured, we are left with Darlow.

 

I also feel given how crazy the season has been and will be and given our momentum, say giving Leicester 60m for Maddison or 30m + for Pedro on top of what we’ve spent, would have given us a greater chance of progressing the ‘project’ quicker and in with a chance of the top 6th and European football next season, which will in time, be vital if we are to retain the likes of Bruno.

 

Hopefully we can address these issues in January while being in a strong position in the table still, time will tell…

 

I do have 100% faith and trust in the club, however, and that eventually, we will get it all right or near enough and that it’s a slow process and we have come a long long way in under a year and so I should, and we all should, be very very happy, which I am, especially as I have the utmost confidence in Howe and his staff that we will compete even with a weakened team, as we showed against LFC.

 

 

Edited September 2, 2022 by HTT II

[80]

8 feels a bit harsh, 9 feels a nudge generous. Went 8 given Ekitike fuck arounds etc.

[Interpolic]

It's all relative I suppose - if you say how is it versus Ashley windows and it's a 10 all day. Not just the money spent but the profile of the signings. But I think a lot of us (myself included) are suddenly looking upwards and seeing the vulnerabilities of the sides above us. There is a big opportunity there, with this manager, which colours judgements. 

[JonBez comesock]

8 on 10

 

use the sausage as a breaker 

[Hanshithispantz]

It was a great window but also a reminder of how much we’re going to benefit from improvements behind the scenes, mainly to the academy and to our scouting department(s).

[Yorkie]

So, according to The Athletic's piece this morning:

 

Legitimate links

Ekitike

Pedro

Tielemans

Luiz

Dendoncker

Pulisic

Gallagher

Broja

Werner

Hudson-Odoi

Maitland-Niles

Ashby

Calvert-Lewin

Toney

Diaby

Lodi

Kepa

Leno

Sanchez

Ake

Kelly

Aguerd

Harrison

Maddison

Gordon

Barnes

Sesko

Pepe

Ramos

Chukwuemeka

Cornet

Breretin Diaz

Angelo Gabriel

Paqueta (briefly near the end)

Terrier 

 

Agent noise/not considered

Coutinho

Draxler

Pelligrini

Lingard

Carlos

Phillips

Raphinha

 

Genuine interest in our players 

Anderson

Wood

ASM

Bruno

[TRon]

1 hour ago, Paully said:

https://theathletic.com/3549446/2022/09/02/newcastle-united-transfers/

 

"while loan bids for Christian Pulisic and Conor Gallagher of Chelsea and Arsenal’s Ainsley Maitland-Niles in part failed because the club are now seen as upwardly mobile and potential threats to the established order."

 

 

 

 

 

We saw this with Man U in the last window when they put a prohibitive tax on signing Lingard because they were hoping we would get relegated. I agree with TCD, we should have learned from this and tried to loan from European clubs who don't have an axe to grind. But that's just my opinion, obviously Eddie wanted to work with known quantities, especially on loan.

[Shays Given Tim Flowers]

In terms of the players acquired probably a 7/10, in terms of what we acheived vs what was acheivable. It's difficult to assess the clubs performance because there is a wealth of information we do not know. I'm sure many were critical or anxious about failing to sign Botman last January and that's turned out ok. 

 

Overall though I feel like this window and the way we have started the season probably shows prospective players that we are very much a club worth joining and progressing with. That's invaluable going forward. 

[Peder75]

For me this window was 9/10 and only a CM away from a 10. I don't expect any push for Europe this season. Our squad is too thin for that. This and the last window was about building a great starting 11. One that can fight for Europe, and I think that's what we have done. We don't have any real depth, and are very vulnerable at the moment. So may it be, but that's something we can start to address in the next window or two.

 

Also want to bring up the other important acquisitions we have done in Dan Asworth (between windows) and Darren Eals who I believe are very important pieces in the puzzle.

[kingxlnc]

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/statistik/vertragslosespieler

 

Free agents - worth trying for 1 year contracts to fill gaps in squad:

 

CB - Jason Denayer

CB - Dan Axel-Zagadou

 

RB - Dijibril Sidibe

RB - Santiago Arias

 

AM - Ross Barkley

RW - Hatem Ben Arfa (!!!)

CM - Mehdi Abied

CM - Alan Dzagoev

CM - Fabian Delph

 

 

 

[Nine]

Hatem is the furthest thing from a Howe player but we’d all still love it anyway 

[kingxlnc]

Hatem would make the transfer window a 10/10 for me haha

 

Not a bad sub option off the bench, surely? 

 

Come home sweet prince

[TRon]

Mehdi Abeid is still knocking around?

[George Bailey]

Solid and much improved (obviously) 7/10 for this window.

Very happy with quality of acquisitions and personnel but feel we are light in overall squad depth putting us at slight risk.

 

Just a wee bit worried that failure to progress this season (if it happens) may lead to challenges around keeping Wilson, Bruno ASM for instance come next season, and our inability to strengthen the squad depth may be a factor in progression and an issue that bites us if injuries hit us in particular.

 

All in all happy but worrying.

 

Och I’m just a miserable old git 

 

[Rich]

7/10 for me, as I always felt we needed a central midfielder and a winger to have a truly "complete" window, which would've been a 10/10.

 

Still a good score, though, and boosted due to the quality of Isak as the striking option versus Ekitike.

 

As others have said, there are only 13 games until the next window opens and a fair few of our targets will be a few more months closer to contract expiry at that stage. I dare say some teams that felt our offers were "derisory" might have different ideas when they're staring down the barrel of 18 months left on a deal instead of 24.

 

If we keep having windows like this, we'll be right up there in no time at all.

[SUPERTOON]

6 minutes ago, George Bailey said:

Solid and much improved (obviously) 7/10 for this window.

Very happy with quality of acquisitions and personnel but feel we are light in overall squad depth putting us at slight risk.

 

Just a wee bit worried that failure to progress this season (if it happens) may lead to challenges around keeping Wilson, Bruno ASM for instance come next season, and our inability to strengthen the squad depth may be a factor in progression and an issue that bites us if injuries hit us in particular.

 

All in all happy but worrying.

 

Och I’m just a miserable old git 

 

Be no issue keeping Wilson, no top club would want him with his injury record. 

[Happinesstan]

7 minutes ago, George Bailey said:

Solid and much improved (obviously) 7/10 for this window.

Very happy with quality of acquisitions and personnel but feel we are light in overall squad depth putting us at slight risk.

 

Just a wee bit worried that failure to progress this season (if it happens) may lead to challenges around keeping Wilson, Bruno ASM for instance come next season, and our inability to strengthen the squad depth may be a factor in progression and an issue that bites us if injuries hit us in particular.

 

All in all happy but worrying.

 

Och I’m just a miserable old git 

 

If injuries hit us we'll be weakened, of course. But that's unlikely given how we're managing the threats. Wilson might miss 9 games this season from little worries, but if we ignore them he could miss 20. The one thing our early season form has shown is that we can cope with a few injuries. As the season progresses I think we'll see less and less.

[Unbelievable]

23 hours ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

Wonder if people are rating the quality of the squad rather than rating the transfer window. 

 

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.

[Happinesstan]

We've massively improved on two vital positions at opposite ends of the pitch. Botman might not be a massive improvement on Burn, but overall our strength in depth is off the chart, and he allowed us to use Burn when Targett was out. 

I don't mourn the lack of a RW because I see Isak occupying that team place, a lot. Would have liked more strength in depth in the middle, or preferably an upgrade on Willock, but once we went from haggling between 25 & 30 million for Pedro, to slapping 60 mill on the table for Isak, that no doubt limited our options.

[TK-421]

10 hours ago, kingxlnc said:

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/statistik/vertragslosespieler

 

Free agents - worth trying for 1 year contracts to fill gaps in squad:

 

CB - Jason Denayer

CB - Dan Axel-Zagadou

 

RB - Dijibril Sidibe

RB - Santiago Arias

 

AM - Ross Barkley

RW - Hatem Ben Arfa (!!!)

CM - Mehdi Abied

CM - Alan Dzagoev

CM - Fabian Delph

 

 

 

 

Zaga-bloody-dou??!!