Whilst the McNeil and Maupay transfers were the two I was distinctly unsure of during the summer, consider the following:
A. McNeil is young enough that if he doesn't make it here we can sell him to a club like Norwich or WBA and get 75% of the money back.
B. Maupay wasn't all that expensive - I know we have to watch every penny - less than half the price of Tosun, for instance. We needed a backup striker in order to not endure any more Rondon.
Yes, in hindsight we would have been better off to pool the £32m we spent on these two and used it to get a genuine threat who can play wide and central across the front three, but half the clubs in Europe are after the same thing and that makes it harder to achieve. Remember how many clubs were linked with Martin Terrier before Rennes renewed his contract!
Provided we stay up comfortably this season, the main achievement will be trimming the wage bill (as we have) for a continued length of time and gradually improving the club's finances. Once on a more stable financial footing we begin to transition younger players into areas where we're getting older (central defence and defensive midfield) in order to get experience ALONGSIDE Coady and/or Tarkowski, or alongside Gana, to ensure continuity. Whilst that carries on, we add a young, pacy threat out wide and start looking for our next CF.
Our problems can't all be fixed in two seasons. Lampard and Thelwell have made solid progress so far but as the lad sat next to me said around 80 mins: "We have sixteen players to choose from when everyone is fit. Most other Prem clubs have twenty-three or twenty-four." This is the consequence of poor transfer activity stretching as far back as Martinez, and we don't have the option of just spending our way out of the mire.
