[deleted],
some answers to your questions.
But I am not sure what the club could have done
differently, as the money from Sigurdsson and Lorente was not
available for new player purchases until he very end of the transfer
window.
Kaplan and Levien took over from HJ regarding the
sale of Gylfi and Llorente, dragged the deal out until the last days
before the window closed just to get top dollar. Everybody
congratulated them on that but by not bringing in replacements, we
signed 2 key players a day or two before the window closed who were not fit and wouldn’t be hitting the
floor running after signing. How on earth can any team, in any
league, start a season with no replacements for star players. If the Yanks are as influential in the financial world as what HJ has stated, what they should have done is borrow the cash to bring in Sanches and
Bony before the players returned for training in the first day of
July. Two months later they would get their money back after the sales of
Gylfi and Llorente. The transfers of Gylfi and Llorente would never
have collapsed as the only aspect why the deal was dragged on was to
get top dollar with more than one team wanting to buy the players.
As for this current window, it is right that
Carlos should have time to identify the players (or at least the type
of players) he wants.
Do you honestly think any manager in recent
seasons has had a major say in who we sign, and do you think that
Clement would have vetoed the signings of Olsson, Ayew and Narsingh?
They can give their opinions but are told to just get on with it, and
this philosophy will be evident once again by the end of January.
Here’s a question for you. Assuming we buy a
RB and a striker, would you use the rest of the money available to
buy a new number 10 or bring Joe Allen back to the Liberty?
When Jenkins was asked about how much cash there
was to spend this month, he told the media that there was around £20M
left over from previous deals to utilise in bringing in new
additions. Should the sale of Fredericks transpire for around £2/3M,
then that will leave £16/17M for other players. What is happening in
this window is the same as in any other window, where a club like the
Swans are at the ‘bottom of the food chain’ in respect to
bringing in players, plus we have a DoF that will bargain to the last
day as far as buying a new addition for as cheap as he possibly can.
Most fans will congratulate him if it works out but continuing to work in that way is always going to be a gamble, and there will be one season when the gamble won't work. As far as Joey is concerned, if we were unwilling to pay £10M for
him 18 months or so ago, how on earth can HJ warrant paying £15M for
the player now. Sheer lunacy.
In the short period Carlos has been with us, in
all honesty he is a breath of fresh air, and a real football person,
unlike Clement, who’s background as a schoolteacher meant he could
handle the media side of his role, had the ability to set up good
training sessions, but the one role that mattered, on the pitch, he
struggled to find an answer in any textbooks that were at his
disposal. The one thing will be sure, although Carlos will not admit
it, is that by the 1st of February he will have been
ground down and fully understand more than ever how amateur the football
side of the club actually is.