Who: Trix
When: 2nd February
Where: SC
I know I said I'd post my window synopsis yesterday, but to be honest I was both waiting to see what the general mood was as well as bits still being drip fed out regarding what happened on Monday. I thought it best to wait until the dust settled in order to give more comprehensive view, and so here we are. I'm glad to see how many of you are looking at the window as having both positives and negatives(which is exactly what it was),even some of you that were so incredibly pessimistic throughout @Aphex
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It was exactly that tbh, many issues addressed but many others still to do. Diaz in the end was the only big strike and miss, and saying that if that see's the end of us dealing with a certain super agent it will ultimately be a big plus imo. It's one thing being gazumped(all's fair etc),but we believe there was more to it than that, with Liverpool knowing exactly what we had offered, the entire package to both club and player, and things were just all a bit to convenient.
Dembele there was
never any interest in.
Eriksen was briefly looked at but not a risk worth taking
Traore as JJ has already alluded to, we definitely wanted but was never seen as ideal for the long term. We would have done it but only really on our terms.
DK has been high on the list for months. He was linked by Italian media prior to the window even being open. Obviously Diaz became the focus when we believed we could get him because if a player of that quality is available you have to try, right. Doesn't mean for one minute we hadn't had a plan in place all along and that DK wasn't part of that plan.
Bentancur I'm still not 100% sure on how long we've been interested and maybe that'll come out in the next couple of weeks if it was always part of the plan or was opportunistic once Vlahovic moved to Juve and they needed money in to help pay for it.
For those saying there was no plan in place...............
This was the plan I was told prior to the window opening and posted at the beginning of the window. Besides a couple of the personnel AC wanted out changing due to performances. Dav and Stevie being the main ones. It went almost exactly to plan.
As far as GLC.......AC wants players who want to play want to listen and want to work to achieve his goals. What he doesn't want is players who when they are told they aren't in the team to just basically shrug their shoulders and walk off after the meeting all happy and jovial. That was what I'm told made his mind up regarding GLC. If you are just told you aren't in the side you should want to know why, and what you can do to be selected.
Not planning what you are doing with your weekend off in front of the coaching staff.
Apart from that things happened exactly as expected, and we are set nicely for what happens in the Summer which was always the primary goal. I'm told we already know who we want and the next few months will be spent working towards achieving that. Those saying we are kicking the can down the road with TN and GLC maybe so but we've seen numerous times now how clubs are forced to just release players for free to shift them, this is bad for so many reasons, and it's only to be done as a last resort. If we can't sell them we loan them hope they perform and we can shift them in the future. Will we get 65 mil for TN in the Summer? Very doubtful, but if he does well the hope is Lyon may come back and say he's not worth that but for example 30-40mil looks like a win for them when the deal originally was for much higher.
Just want to say again thanks to @Rob, @Archibald&Crooks, and especially this window to @Stoof and @chrissivad for policing the ITK thread through the last couple of days. I think it's shown beyond doubt the lax approach in regards rules that many posters were asking for was a disaster, and the way A&C has been doing it for years is a clearly a necessity if we want it to continue.
