I think we'll sign Schneiderlin, and have a slight chance of Depay, and that might be it.
Then this whole circus moves on to the summer.
I get the nagging feeling at times that FM has decided on a strategy where he is bullish in public about transfers, but then deliberately frugal in reality to channel as much funding (USM Sponsorship, the £80m loan, other streams) towards Bramley Moore as possible. If so, and it gets built, then fantastic but in the meantime we will be exposed to the same smokescreens every time the window is open.
With TV revenues, we could continue to spend £40-50m for a few successive windows, without any dent on the clubs fundamentals. There isn't any big statement of intent in doing so. I think the Martinez pay-off, Niasse fiasco, and costs of hiring Koeman and Walsh, might all have contributed to a decision to spend deliberately less than publicly touted over this window, and last, allowing for the Sissoko transfer. I know people will say we made definitive bids for Witsel and Koulibaly etc, but the point is we didn't sign them, and now we have Koeman saying "its our first choice targets or nothing".
In the context where our season is more or less over competitively in January, I imagine FM and the board could see logic in signing no new players at all but that wouldn't wash with the assurances they have given Koeman and his and the fans growing impatience. So we sign Schneiderlin, get 3 or 4 players sold or off the wage bill, and make a few failed moves over the last 48 hours, until the relief of February 1 rolls around.
Some would then say Koeman has been lied to, others might suggest he merely wasn't given the full picture. I increasingly think that the board are happy to trundle along until we get an announcement about BMD. In that context, I think the PR message will change - it will be along the lines that the club is committed to delivering something that everyone wants, and that sacrifices ("sustainability") will have to be made to get us there. If I am typical of the average fan, then that message will be easy enough to sell.
Tightening the purse strings in that context is fine, only at the moment they can't go public with that line until after an announcement. If the announcement comes before the summer, I would gladly settle for that at the expense of big transfer investment for another while longer (4-5 years), and we will all be clearer on where things stand.
