Philogene, Delap and Morton, great signings. Twine has been a disappointment given how hard we'd chased him, and he plays (or should be playing) in a position where we already had numbers and quality. Hardly key. Connolly, a player in there for sure, but hardly robust. Lokilo, a punt. Vinagre, although he also has something, it's been pretty much a disaster, leaving us without a LB week after week. Furlong, 21 y.o., known quantity, 16 senior appearances in SPL half season loan yet deemed not good enough even as cover. Allsop. Good with his feet, compared to Ingram, but, not really any upgrade in terms of goalkeeping. Rosenior clearly said we'd go for robustness, we'd have a smaller squad with 2 players for each position, plus utility players. We got nowhere near, unless he meant players for training sessions but not deemed good enough to play on actual match days, hence square pegs in round holes all over the park week after week. If it isn't going to happen then don't say it's going to happen or else you set yourself up. Inexperience and BS I'm afraid.
Furlong was always coming in to develop and was spoken of as such at the time. We've signed experienced spl team of the year players in the not too distant past and they weren't good enough for League 2 - such is the disparity between sides at the top and bottom of that league. Furlong wasn't ever part of the first team picture for this season. And to be fair, we've coped without Vinagre on the left better than we have with Christie on the right so far this season if you look at how goals are being conceded. Summer was far from a poor window. All in all. 6 of the 8 have been regulars, were in a higher position as a result. Vinagre seems to be returnable so no massive lay out and we're clearly revisiting positions we lost out on in summer this January. How many more than 8 should we have brought in in summer exactly? And are you paying?
Correct, he was. Which, given that a) he was very well known to Rosenior, and b) he'd been good enough the previous season to play in the SPL (and good enough for Brighton's bench for PL before the loan,) it just seems odd allround, not least as it meant that at LB we didn't have the spoken about "2 players for every position", compounded by the fact that Vinagre's robustness was highly questionable (as many pointed out at the time). And it's not just LB.
The ideal was 2 decent options for each position. It still is. . Doesn't mean you get your ideal in 1 window though. Not even 2. Not in reality anyway. And if you think 16 games at a lower end SPL side is evidence of championship quality then you clearly never saw Greg Strong or John Anderson play. I don't believe Furlong was at Brighton at the time Rosenior was - there was an interview around the time he signed, where it was clearly stated he was a development signing. So no, he wasn't well known to Rosenior, he was a Darno punt who's not costing a wedge.
There’s an entire thread on the Derby forum about selling Bird this January. A lot of fans are saying the same thing i.e. he’s a tidy passer of the ball but doesn’t tackle, doesn’t score, doesn’t create enough/not enough assists and is too weak/lacks physicality. If we signed him he’d be a younger Ryan Woods.
Based even on your statement I would put that as 5 out of the 8 signings contributing. Think we’ve also seen how one dimensional we are without Allsop as well. In terms of recent windows that’s a pretty good window. It’s not as if they didn’t try to get players in. Players like Drameh and Travers picked other champ clubs and players like Rak-Sakyi and Davis it just didn’t work out in time. With how bad our previous windows have been there was always going to be a transition period and it is shown by the fact that key contributors are only on loan. Hell, if we’d only really got production out of Philogene from £5m to sell him for big money that still would make it a successful window
I did see and do remember Strong and Anderson. Irrelevant. It wasn't some sort of long term future ideal, it was for this past summer (along with getting signings in early ) Furlong and Rosenior arrived / departed the same month. Of course it wasn't a "Darno punt"! Rosenior would have known all about him.
Any club recruits to a plan. Very few get everything they want in 1 window. We've brought in 8, 6 are regulars. 1 could go either way and the one who hasn't is a loan and relatively low risk and will be rectified in the coming days/weeks. 75% hit rate is pretty decent by any standards. And if you remember, Anderson was SPL team of the year. I presume you'd have started him in a top 6 championship side then? If not, then it's not irrelevant.
I’ll be honest, I’ll be a little disappointed if Allahyar goes. He’s had issues with hamstring injuries but he is a far, far better option than Lokilo.
In fairness, you clearly don’t remember John Anderson if you think he was ****. He won several player of the season awards before moving on.
He deserves a start on saturday for sure. See if he's got it about him to stay fit because there's no doubting his potential
Fitness has improved, league position has improved. We have 2 options all over the park except left back where he knew Greaves and Coyle could cover. Not always perfect options but they were over going to be without signing a dozen or more players. And we were a lot closer at the end of summer than we were at the end of last season.
