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This is from an Athletic article today on our recruitment system (a very good read for those that subscribe).
Feel like the harsh criticism is a touch unfounded. Definitely a wait and see.
Richie and Digne brilliant business (would be worth combined £100m - practically double in value)
Mina good player
Bernard a free - so strong sell on value
Kean and JPG - can't make a call either way yet
Iwobi - looks at this point to be a poor pick up, but played out of position
Delph - bad move, but only £8mil.
Branthwaite - has the potential to be the Coleman deal of this decade
Yeah
I really don't understand the calls for his head and the terrible criticism of his buys. The club have said often that we operate a policy whereby the DOF and Manager jointly agree on which players to buy/sell. It's the only policy that makes sense to me and I can't see why anybody would question it.
The other key factor is that, ever since he has been here, Brands has been hamstrung by the very poor acquisitions and high salaries handed out by the previous regime. FFP has hampered his operation. Offloading poor players on high wages has proved extremely difficult, and there was a time when we had I think 15 players out on loan.
On top of this we have been badly affected by injuries, especially with some of the players purchased under Brands. Gomes has shown that, fully fit, he can be a special talent if he has a quality DM alongside him. I'm pretty sure our season would have panned out entirely different had we had him and Gbamin available for most of it.
When you look at the acquisitions, the only one I would seriously question would be Iwobi, as this stinks of a deadline day panic buy. He actually could still come good for us because he has talent and is still young. Iwobi playing in a confident team winning games could be a very different player to the one we saw last season. The other acquisition that I personally questioned was Delph, and that was because he had a history of injuries. But many on here were seemingly very happy when we bought him and even spoke of him becoming captain.
Since Brands has been here he has spent £100m net on the squad. I ask myself if that squad is £100m better than it was before he came, and I think it is. I'm pleased that we have players like Richarlison, Kean, Digne, Bernard, Mina and Gbamin on board, and the only player I'm sad to see leave is Gana. Yes there is still work to be done. We really need to strengthen with at least 1 new centre midfielder, a right winger and a right back. Plus we need to offload at least 5/6 players on big wages who don't contribute. It would be good if we could sell them, along with a number of the U23 squad, to bring in much needed funds but loans for the likes of Besic, Sandro and Bolasie will suffice if need be given their contracts expire at the end of next season.
Like everybody else I'd like to have seen more activity in the current transfer window, but apart from Chelsea, there isn't really anybody, doing much at the moment. Everything's up in the air with covid, changes to seasons timetables and of course transfer windows. For a lot of clubs across Europe the current season hasn't even ended FFS. Probably more than most clubs, our incomings will be determined by our outgoings to a large extent. I'm not saying we don't have ANY funds available, but the amount we can spend will no doubt be determined by what we bring in from sales and how much wages we are able to offload. So I think it is inevitable that most of our business will be done late in the transfer window rather than earlier, and I think we all need to steel ourselves for that. And that isn't in any way Brands fault. It is a legacy of the situation he took over when he joined the club.
Having said that, it would be nice if we did spend whatever net budget we do have on a Richarlison type acquisition within the next week or so. Feelings are running high in the transfer thread and it may just calm a few down if we were able to unveil a Gabriel, Sarr or a Benrahma.
