Everton came into this window with essentially no budget but lots of needs as the team was weak almost everywhere important. He therefore had little margin for error. Thelwell has added three players with PL experience for effectively no money, raised a few £ selling kids & the Stones bonus and taken a punt on two Euro strikers, one somewhat established and one a developmental invesTrent, with almost zero upfront cash but slightly inflated full fees to work with almost no cash. We simply could not go for players where clubs wanted real cash up front which limited our options.
The biggest criticism is that we are struggling to shift high wage dross to create wage room for another loan but that kind of deal always tends to go the wire so we cannot say he has failed until the window fully closes (including Turkey mid September).
We are not in the position Forest are in where they can stump up cash upfront to buy a dozen mid price guys and hope a couple work. Nor can we take the risks Brighton and Brentford did a few years ago grabbing cheap youngsters from minor leagues/smaller teams and slowly developing them given we need immediate impact.
On paper Thelwell has done a decent job walking his very narrow line and still has 55+ hours left to improve on the job so far.
On the pitch we remain a mess and desperately need everyone fit, with DCL, McNeil, Danjuma, Harrison & the new Euro strikers bagging goals.