Rather than post some knee jerk reaction, i have slept on it and probably see the whole thing a bit more clearly now.
Overall, this window has been yet another false dawn in our modern history. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Negative net spend, gaps in the squad, the first 11 have not improved and the replacements on the whole were simply replacing players who were deemed to not have a place at the club. Shockingly bad failure by anyone involved in the transfer dealings, more so the fact it is probably the same people who were failures previous years. For all the talks of money and having bigger wages, what have we got to show for it? The biggest business we did was 22 million and 90 grand a week wages for Yanick Bolasie! Take scope of that for a second, we sold a potentially world class player and that was the best we could bring in for the higher wages.
I know people will spin this positively but how can you? We have wasted an opportunity, spent nothing and plucked players from worse teams. We have not improved one bit. 'we took the best players from teams below us...' yes we did, and all that does is make us an even better mid table team. So despite the reports of having money to spend, it turned out we had none, and for a starters, the tv money that other clubs spent freely, yeah that is going to be arteta'd straight into the club never to be seen again.
It is just so frustrating being a blue, every single time you get your hopes up they make sure it is all for nothing. How can a club operate like this for so long swallowing money despite having a billionaire owner now? It is a joke, not one person can argue differently because there is no proof otherwise, we didn;t spend any money and we only spent what we brought in money wise.
If this window proves nothing else, 11th is exactly where we belong, mid table because we have no realistic ambition of getting any better.
Firstly, it wasn't negative. Ignoring the TV money as that hasn't been factored in to that table that showed a negative spend, counting Stones' sell-on fee we're just about spending £5mil NET. Not good enough (even though it still doesn't mean we haven't spent money - we have) if indeed extra funds were pledged.
The first 11 is much stronger Ash.
Last year's - Howard/Joel; Coleman, Stones, Jags, Baines; McCarthy, Barry; Lennon, Barkley, Cleverley, Lukaku.
This year's - Stekelenburg; Coleman, Williams, Jags, Baines; Gueye, Barry, Barkley; Bolasie, Lukaku, Mirallas.
That cannot be disputed mate. The signings we have brought in have replaced players (bar STONES) who were merely draining a wage and not having any impact on the club.
I'm not spinning it positively, but you're spinning it very negatively. You say you've slept on it yet clearly you haven't let anything settle. The squad as it stands is better than it was and we've got a manager who knows what he's doing and won't stick rigidly to a plan or system that is failing.
This does at the moment feel like a missed opportunity to really get some quality in and make sure we can compete all season. That is on the club - namely the people at the top - and something has to be done. Perhaps an open letter to the club to be published in the Echo, whatever, to get out there that the FANS still aren't happy that there are quite clearly certain people involved who simply-put should have been got shut of a long time ago.
And no Ash, 11th is not WHERE WE BELONG. IF that was the case, Bobby Martinez would still be here.
This squad last season was better than finishing 11th, and would have done had we had a manager who could defend properly. You don't have a striker who bags 18 goals in a league season playing for many sides that finish mid-table...
