even with tav the midfield we still needed more quality. Crooks and Howson should have been squad players not starters, with TAV + plus two more quality midfield additions. Gibsons half committed approach to recruitment is understandable given he's had his fingers burnt on more than one occasion, but at the end of the day if your only going to half go for it , you might as well not bother at all
————————Steffen———————-
——-Dijksteel—Lenihan—Greaves———-
Jones—Tav—Choudhury—McGree—Giles
————-Armstrong—Muniz——————
We needed to sign improvements on the following positions in Siliki’s case we had to sign the player we thought we were getting with him.
4 James Léa Siliki
7 Marcus Tavernier
10 Martin Payero
11 Folarin Balogun
£10m in the kitty we had done big names banded about.. nothing like the hidden gems Keiren Scott was supposed to uncover from German markets, Dutch divisions and the like.
Our rivals in the transfer window were quick of the mark spunking nearly £7m on a nobby’s notebook trove of talent..
4 Josh Cullen £2.7m - Burnley
7 Matt O'Riley £1.62m - Celtic
10 Scott Twine £2.61m - Burnley
11 Ellis Simms - Loan - Blackburn
Bargains go closer to the wire but we’re still left waving £9m at £10m strikers we’re never going to get and trying to pick up £8m midfielders in on loan..
4 Oliver Abildgaard - Loan - Celtic
7 Callum Styles - Free - Millwall
10 Andy Rinomhota - Free - Cardiff
11 Kion Etete - £540k - Cardiff
Alex Mowett is through the door as the best replacement for Marcus Tavernier we could for (Cheers Keiran) with the window shut Josh Onoma turns to Massimo Luongo and thoughts of Frank ‘the tank’ Onyeka are replaced with whisper of Dale Stephens.
Armstrong, Henry, Larsen, Elis, Surridge.. the sound of strikers flatlines into the distant white noise of an approach for Fabian Delph.