I would give 6/10. It’s been a really mixed bag.
On the one hand we have addressed the glaring hole in the team in defensive midfield with one of the world’s best in that position with Casemiro.
Eriksen on a free was good business and a bit of a no-brainer to replace some of the creativity we lost from Pogba and to a lesser extent Mata.
And Malacia is the kind of signing that I think we all like to see. Huge potential and for around the same price as we sold Pereira.
The Martinez signing needs more time to judge as it was another significant outlay in a position we have invested quite heavily in during the last 6-7 years.
The negative is that we have a lot of issues in the squad that have not been adequately addressed during the window. These were known and long-standing issues and we seemingly didn’t have much of a plan despite having a Director of Football in situ for a while now.
Goalkeeper was an issue 2 seasons ago and has been allowed to drift without a long-term decision. A right-back was a priority last summer and seemingly little action to address it in this window. No long-term striker option when we ideally need two. The Greenwood situation and Ronaldo’s status has created a vacuum and created a scenario where we are now reliant again on a player that most of us had finally written off. A right wing option was needed (and may soon arrive). A ball playing central midfielder would be on the list too.
It was probably impossible to address all these issues in one window but there seemed to be a lack of a coherent strategy for this window. There has been questionable prioritisation and an overwhelming sense that the club either didn’t have a plan or wilfully abandoned it for Ten Hag without hesitation. It doesn’t inspire much confidence.
It is also really frustrating that the budget has seemingly increased in the last weeks of the window. If we had a larger pot to work with at the beginning of the window then I’m sure we could have had done the Antony deal for example earlier and at a cheaper fee. Instead we seemed to be priced out of that deal early on because we couldn’t stretch the budget to get him and De Jong.
If we had say £200m to spend at the beginning of the window we should have chosen which three positions to target marquee signings in and allocated £150m-£170m to get those three players. We should then have made the remaining budget stretch to address the other areas of the squad by utilising bosmans, players in last year of contract, loans, smart scouting for talents like Malacia and being more active in selling players that were surplus to requirements.
For example if Ten Hag’s priorities were CB, CM and a forward I’m sure we could have acquired a combination of the below players for £150m-£170m had we been decisive.
CB: Martinez/ Torres
CM: De Jong/ Casemiro/ Caicedo/ Neves etc
FW: Antony/ Nkunku/ Sesko etc
In addition to Malacia, Eriksen we could then have also done the following:
Sign Kamara on a free so that we had a DM option.
Be more ruthless in selling AWB. Find a RB talent in the market for “Malacia money”. Minimal net spend.
Be more decisive on the GK. We were always going to sign another number 2 with Henderson going. Pick one, get it done early for less than £10m. Alternatively, sell Henderson for a reasonable fee if he had made it clear he wanted out.
Be more decisive on the Ronaldo situation. We were probably never going to sign a top centre forward this summer whether he left or not but the current situation was inevitable. We should have moved him on whilst he was still under the impression there would be interest from other clubs. We would then use the remaining budget to find a short-term fix for under £20m or if we had been really proactive maybe even Sesko would have been possible at this price.
