I disagree. It did at first but the club came out fighting and bet big on Koeman. We spent a lot of money and built a new and exciting team. Moreover, it was Koeman's team and was put together to play hos way. What has Puel got that he expressly wanted? Where has the aggressive rhetoric about our ambition disappeared to? All we have done this time is pass the buck to Koeman and then go abcl toa youth policy that isn't working (how many young players who Koeman didn't use have appeared in the the first three games?). No. This window feels worse.
No names, as I don't want this to end up as a personality thread but: "I would be surprised if other fans thought we had a good window. They would probably focus on our out goings and in their eyes our lack of adequate replacement. Personally I thought the window wasn't that good either and I look forward to the club proving me completely wrong again" - 2015 "8 players who made first team appearances last season have left this summer and so far we've bought 6. There are 24 hours to go but so far we haven't added depth to the squad. If anything we have less depth." - 2014 "Do you think we'll stay up? What do you think? It's a hell of a gamble to try and completely replace a team over the summer, look at how qpr did when they tried it." - 2014 Change a number or two in those posts and they could have been written in the last three days or so... Vin
I was going to say something similar. This is not the first time we have appeared as if we haven't moved with the times and we all ended up pleasantly surprised. Yes it may turn one day/soon (or we may even move with the times through the eyes of this forum!) but since the 2009 revolution we have been proven wrong time and time again.
Osvaldo payoff (£7m) was in the last set of accounts, for '14/'15. Don't think there was any Ramirez payoff...his contract just ran down. Announced profit/loss really doesn't matter in football, because there are some truly strange accounting treatments that go into it (please don't make me start the amortization/profit on player sales debate again), but the bottom line then was £62.2 in gross debt, less £14.5m in cash on hand, with a net £11.5m in transfer fees owed to us. Essentially, taking those items together, our long-term shortfall was £36.2m, which happens to be roughly what we spent on infrastructure improvements. Also worth noting that the Schneiderlin and Clyne deals were not factored in; they will show up in the '15/'16 books, as I believe will the Mane and Wanyama deals.
Well I remember that after the initial loss of Lambert, Lallana, et al, that folk described Pelle as being "a decent backup". It's far too early to assess how well the team will fare but I am confident that the strategy is consistent and the board are not taking any chances with my club.
I guess the difference to me is that expectations are greater. I felt like the club might finish 12th or so after the Great Meltdown. But I was quite happy with that based on all of the turmoil that had gone on. I really felt like the club had done a very good job considering what they were faced with that summer. This year, I feel like the club might finish about the same. But it's more disappointing because I felt like going into the summer we were more stable, had more money, and a better reputation to allow us to attract better players. So although I'm thinking 12th again, I'm not as happy about it. But I get your point that even though I predicted 12th, we finished 7th and that season was much better than what I would have thought. So we could do it again. But I can't really get around to thinking "Well, I think we'll finish 12th, that means we'll finish 6th." I mean, at that point I'm ultimately thinking we'll finish 6th and just sort of playing a little mindgame with myself, if you know what I mean. I'm using my faith in Reed et al., already to think we will finish 12th. Because at present, given the Euro schedule, my feeling we lack depth, etc. we certainly don't look that way. But I think we get the formation issues ironed out, and Boufal ends up being not Mahrez or Hazard, but maybe like Mane. He'll have some great games, but is still too rough around the edges to lift us to another level this year. "Not gutted, but a little disappointed (and willing to wait and see)" pretty much captures my mindstate right now.
