I'd like this to be a thread where people can post a real review of their thoughts and opinions on the summer transfer dealings. Break down why they think it and overall come to a conclusion and a rating of the business. I'm going to break my review down into what our goals should have been going in, and if we have achieved them or not. I'm also going to try and rank them in terms of importance.
MAIN GOALS:For me it was clear that we had 3 main goals going into this window and they were as follows:
* Under no circumstances do we sell Phil Coutinho
* Buy Virgil Van Djik
* Buy Naby Keita
As of right now, we have not sold Phil. People are talking about how we are going to sell him next summer already which is pathetic, please don't post in hypotheticals when reviewing. Fact is, a main target was to keep him and the rest of our best players.
target achievedVvD was an absolute shambles. The tapping up, the rubbish job by the journalists who are 'in the know' reporting this and the sheer amount of time dedicated to this man all factored into frustration. It looks like Saints have just done what we have with Phil and said he's not for sale. Nevertheless
target failedNaby Keita is a Liverpool player. Yes people NABY KEITA IS A LIVERPOOL PLAYER. Seems many forget that. We managed to do the best deal possible for him. We didn't get him this year, because it was impossible to do so, so we got the next best thing and have him wrapped up for next season. Now I think some will argue that this shouldn't count in the review of this window because we won't sign him until next year but that's a silly argument as we did the deal in this window AND I know those same people next season will say that 'you can't count the Keita deal because it was done the season before' just to have a go at FSG for no F***ing reason. We wanted to sign Keita. We signed Keita.
Target achievedSECONDARY GOALS:This could be an endless list but I'll try and keep it limited to transfers and squad building for the sake of this thread, apologies if I've missed any:
* Strengthen the left back position
* Strengthen squad depth due to increase in games, this done by:
* Giving youth a chance
* Shave off 'deadwood'
The left back role was filled well by James Milner last season, he played nearly every game and it got us back into the top 4. I think saying that he was good isn't too much of a stretch. He wasn't setting the world on fire, but at the same time he was a very safe pair of hands in that role. Robertson looks like an attacking threat and we've yet to really see if he's an improvement. Moreno has been given a new lease on life which has hampered Robertson slightly. Chamberlin can play there, but I wouldn't expect to see him in that role. Too early to tell with this one, not a failure but we cannot say it's a success either.
InconclusiveThe squad now is better than it was, simple as that. The signing of Salah has been a revelation and Chamberlin will be a very good addition in my eyes, especially because of the broad spectrum of positions he can play. We look like giving youth a good chance too, players like Gomez, Grujic, Solanke and Woodburn have featured to some extent and TAA looks like he will be a star. As they develop the need to strengthen the positions they play will decrease. We've also managed to trim the fat so to speak. Lucas, Sahko, Fulton, Stewart and Hart never had a long term future here and we got around the £40million mark for them, good business. Also loans to people like Origi and Kent may just be what they need, however I think if you're having to go out on loan, there is little chance you'll make it at your parent club, but we'll see. Overall, this squad > last years.
Target achievedI'm not happy we didn't sign VvD or any other centre back for that matter. If we did we would have had an A+ window for sure. I'm not prepared to call this window a complete failure because of that one missed target but I will have to drop my overall rating quite substantially to a:
B