Net spend down
Wage bill down
League position up
Posters trying to beat him with the benefit of hindsight and ignoring our cash-flow / regulatory problems and the urgency of fixing a first team in relegation trouble.
With Beto he was trying to get a senior first team striker to cover DCL - he was totally hamstrung by our cash-flow and FFP issues which didn't put us in the best bargaining position - I expect many selling clubs were even wondering whether they would ever see the money from us - we are a major credit risk.
Players like Coleman, DCL, Stones, Branthwaite etc. were bargains in hindsight - but none of them were bought to solve an immediate problem like Maupay and Beto were - they all took at least a season to contribute significantly to the first team.
Luckily for us, DCL came back from injury and the Beto gamble sort of worked - a few goals and cover for the end of games to give DCL recovery time.
Maupay was a worse buy imo - but you can see he was PL cheap and seemed to bring some guaranteed goals and effort with him and perhaps Simms was seen as the more obvious DCL backup at the time.
Tarks, Garner, Onana, McNeil, Harrison, Gana 2 - perfectly decent signings. Jury is out on Chermiti but perhaps he will make up for Simms and then some.
Seems to me like that is a GCSE 'B' - not perfect but pretty good on a challenging exam.