“the window wasn’t that bad” is one of the most nonsensical things I’ve ever read. Legitimately a strong argument for it to be the worst transfer window of any premier league club in history. If we don’t beat derbys record, it will be the worst window for a PL club in history. Truly shambolic recruitment and everyone involved should be sacked.
TBH if it was earlier in the window I would have accepted that and reinvested the money in the squad. Mitoma, while a cracking player, is now 27 and with their scouting team they could sign 3 or 4 really good players with that.
Only reason it seems worse than it is, is because we were coming into this season with a Championship-level squad, which needed a massive investment. Even 100m was never going to be enough. We needed to spend double that. In previous seasons we had some awful windows, but we had a half-decent Prem-level squad to fall back on. For example; In the summer of 2020, we brought in an injured Salisu, replaced Harry Reed with Diallo, and got Theo Walcott on loan. Now that's bad. It was exactly this type of window - year after year - that transformed us from a top 8 club, into relegation fodder.[/QUOTE]
Wait, how can he play for Everton this season? He's played for both us and Flamengo, and don't FIFA rules prevent you from representing 3 clubs in a season? Or is that a European or English rule? Hmm.
It is a FIFA rule. But I think there's some sort of exception where different countries have different seasons - and the Brazilian season I believe has finished.
I will always be thankful to Martin for giving me that day at Wembley - and for that reason I can't hate the guy - but it continuously made me uncomfortable that his style of play seemed to stifle Charly so much. He should have been a star in the Championship, and under most managers I suspect he would have been. I really don't want to see him in an Everton shirt.
[/QUOTE] Very much a sliding doors moment for me (said that a few times with Martin). I also don’t think the recruitment was that bad but we had no chance with Martin in charge. If we’d replaced him and let someone else have the squad from pre season I think we’d do be doing a lot better
Haven’t watched Ipswich much but have any of their signings been that good? We arguably had a stronger base squad after promotion and they signed Delap and Clarke (who both allegedly chose them over us), Greaves, I don’t know how he’s done there, but with Bednarek and THB we probably couldn’t guarantee first team football. Not sure how any of their other signings have done, think the keeper they spent big money on has been **** but no idea about any of their players really apart from Delap who looks to be doing well
This really pisses me off. Martin really did **** us as a football club. As for Wembley I think our players got us there despite Martin so there will be no thanks from me regarding him.
