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Sexyfootball said:
I think that's the nub of it isn't it ... £200m doesn't buy you that much in modern football ... obviously it hasn't helped that we've bought so many duds in the last 5 years, so we are behind the curve so to speak.

Of course we can't truly evaluate a transfer window until there are tangible measurable results to assess it against. 

On paper, the 20/21 window looked superb (Mendy, Chilwell, Havertz, Ziyech, Werner - £222.5m) but fast forward 24  months and Mendy has lost form, Chilwell has lost his starting place after injury, Havertz is inconsistent and far from what we thought we were buying, Ziyech would have been sold if we could have found a buyer, and Werner HAS been sold ... it was basically a huge amount of money down the drain. Hopefully this year's buys prove better. Suspect we will need 2 more windows to fix all the glaring holes and deadwood. This season could well be the last one with us for Kepa, Silva, Azpi, Jorginho, Kante, RLC, Havertz, Pulisic and Ziyech, but there is only so much revolution you can do in one window ! I think Boehly is on the right path, and when they get the DoF in, plus start using data analytics in earnest, I think we will see a quantum leap forward.
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Good points here and from @HazardousChoice.

For me it has to surely be about thinking and shopping smarter. Of the group that you have selected Werner is probably the most striking for me. He was prolific when we were looking at him, one of, if not the highest goalscorer in Europe at that time. Not only clinical but a blistering turn of pace. Liverpool were sniffing around him big time and it was a major coup of Marina's to get a deal done and bring him in.

Yes, there were some glaring misses at the start and an erosion of confidence, but that happens to all strikers and they generally bounce back at some point. However with Timo it soon became evident that he just didn't fit with the style of football that TT plays. What is the point of playing a pacy striker that sprints in behind if you play a slow tempo possession based game. Jamie Vardy would similarly find SB a graveyard in this system.

Werner then returns to Leipzig, back to a counter attacking rapid ball movement system and hey presto, goals, goals, goals. It tells us one thing. It weren't down to Timo!

Now i don't particularly like this football. I like swarming, smothering pressing of the ball, and then rapid one, two touch passing when in possessions and getting in behind. Basically a counter attacking strategy.

But if this is what it is going to be, then this is it. But if we are going to operate on this basis agaisnt teams that will sit deep against us and will try to counter on us we must employ players that are ultra comfortable with the ball at their feet, that move constantly, that do not fall to the floor every time someone puts them on the weights, that can unlock defences with forward passes but can also strike from distance.

For me these last two points are probably the most important. Employing players that constantly want to run with the ball in a possesion based team against low block opposition is destined for failure. This is why our players constantly run out of ideas as they run into endless dead ends making the rest of the team bemusedly stand and watch rather than move into space. Also if there are 18 -20 blokes inside the box because of a low block and countless sideways passing by us, somebody in this team has to have the ability and the bollox to shoot from range.

Therefore (long winded, apologies) its not about us buying the most shiniest players on the shelf, it must surely be about buying players that fit the mould of the style that we want to play and if it means we forgo the likes of CR7, Haaland, Lewandowski etc and end up going for people like Brereton Diaz because he fits our style and will be dynamic in this system , then i think that's what we should be doing. A bit moneyball i know, but there are so may stats sites out there developing this type of empirical data should not be hard.

We will see with what we have now got. All i will say is that there are number of different faces turning up but still similar styles of footballers that we either have already got or have just moved on.

 
Valerie said:
And no other last minute loan? Oh dear. In which competitions is the window still open, Saudi-Arabia? Canada? @axman2526 would love to see him in his neck of the woods! It's waiting for the January window otherwise. 
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Probably only Toronto FC might pay him decent wages and that is far, far away...

 
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