I was just looking over our premier league transfers. God damn we spent money under Keane and pretty much recouped nothing. With Bruce we spent more wisely and the Selling of Henderson was a added bonus for him. However again a lot of money spent on nothing. The club under both did not progress, neither did the squad. O'neill fewer players but still big Money. You could argue he did well bar Graham. However through out all of these signings at no point has anyone signed a quality central midfielder. The last of those sadly coming in the Peter Reid era. So now we seem to be constantly giving boat loads of players away for next to nothing and we are continuously reducing the wage bill. We appear to be spending approximately 20 million on summer transfer windows with maybe 10 in the January window. Does 20 million sound right for a club like ours to make a profit? The club seem to add wages into the transfer signings but this is ingenuous as they don't deduct wages of players who have gone. So here we are another window shut. So who do we have worth any money? Fletcher - would we recoup what we paid. Just about. Vital for us now. Altidore - if it doesn't work out more money to be lost. Like the look of him though and think he can do well. Up front are we stronger or weaker than this time last year. I would say stronger and we will see more goals from the front two. Bold perhaps. Midfield - giacc' due to his age we will make no money on him. Can he adapt to the pace of the prem? Some back up wingers for very little. Cabral well he looked good to me, totally baffled here? N'Daiye, again loaned out when he has the attributes Paolo was wanting with big and strong. Johnson would probably not be worth what he was. Has our midfield improved - debatable. Defence, I think we have improved here but again we have no one of any value. Think diakate could come good. Maybe roberge can play the holding role? So has Di fanti listened to Di Canio. We all heard what type of players he wanted. Has his DOF done well or let him down. I have avoided mentioning loan signings as these do not improve your club or have any value to us.
Short will have had enough of spending fees like 6m on Gardner and Graham and who can blame him. We've spent 100m net since we came up from the championship and look where we are. It's time to start all over again with this new style of recruitment. Next summer will also be a busy one imo. Players will be off as their contracts and loans expire and we'll get the chance to improve the general quality of the squad again We cannot sell any of our good performers next summer. Really. This is a long term project and our squad will improve year after year as long as we don't sell our good players and instead buy new good players
I think we may have come up against problems when we've approached certain targets given our position in the league the last few seasons and the big upheaval at the club with a new backroom set up and a new relatively untested manager who with the best will in the world has a reputation that rightly or wrongly preceeds him. Di fanti and co are used to dealing with big players and I feel we probably were in for a few others that didn't come off for one reason or another. I just hope that those we have got in gel quickly and that di canio settles with a first choice 11. We have a tough run of games coming up and we need everybody pulling together manager, players and fans.
