Summer 2020 Transfer Window (Extended Version)

[Sniffer]

Ok. Literally loads of posters on here said they would “wait until the window is shut to give my assessment of our business”.

Let’s have those assessments now. Are we happy with the squad and starting 11? Have we improved the side?*

*I am genuinely interested before people start reading too much in to my post.

The squad had definitely improved but the jury will be out on the starting XI for a couple of months.

Semedo is an upgrade on Doherty, Marcal could prove to be an upgrade on Saiss, RAN might be an upgrade on Jonny. We need time to let the new players settle in and adapt to Nuno's formation and new style.

 

[YoungWolf]

Ok. Literally loads of posters on here said they would “wait until the window is shut to give my assessment of our business”.

Let’s have those assessments now. Are we happy with the squad and starting 11? Have we improved the side?*

*I am genuinely interested before people start reading too much in to my post.

At the start of the window I think I was hopeful of 3/4 signings.

Have we improved the squad - most definitely. The 18 overall has plenty of quality and we now have actual options on the bench. At the moment Kilman is the 19th man again when everyone is fit - but the 18 in front of him compared to before is vastly improved. Shabani is clearly also considered a potential option too I think.

Regards to improving the side - slightly (for now). Semedo is a big upgrade on Doherty for me, so there is that. I also think Marcal is a player with a lot of quality, and that Ait-Nouri is a very exciting player to have signed for the left hand-side, I can't see us signing him only to sit him on the bench most of the time. There's then time for Hoever, Silva and Vitinha to make an impact, which I suspect will take slightly more time but I'm OK with that. I would have liked a centre back for sure, because I think that is the next area to improve but it's a difficult one to get right without spending a huge amount (maybe suggests why we have gone for Hoever).

I think you said 7/10 window before, I'd probably go along with that BUT with the potential to be better when we look back in say, a years time.

I'm interested to see if we look at any players in the Championship. Rodon was linked with Spurs yesterday - I'd be keeping an eye on him and there are others with quality in the division.

 

[Kenny]

Ok. Literally loads of posters on here said they would “wait until the window is shut to give my assessment of our business”.

Let’s have those assessments now. Are we happy with the squad and starting 11? Have we improved the side?*

*I am genuinely interested before people start reading too much in to my post.

We have improved the squad I think and that was seemingly Nuno's priority this window. If he feels he now has a bench he can trust to send on then that is a massive step forward. Last season, outside of whichever wide forward was on the bench he was reluctant to use anyone else.
Starting 11 improvement - Semedo aside, we haven't added immedediate improvements (Ait-Nouri is probably the best bet of the rest to hit the ground running). Don't know a great deal about the young lads added to see if they are step ups but again, it seems Nuno's plan for this window was to start the next phase of his time with us and we have definately taken steps to cover positions in the coming years.

Happy that it seems Nuno 100% wanted 2 players - Semedo & Young Fab and we went and got them for him and spent heavily to do so.

The UEFA FFP has had to be managed more than a lot of fans stated. I think with money coming in (inc Costa & Cav promotion) we have spent a net 500k?.

It is now down to Nuno to get us motoring again and getting that zip back in our game that has been missing.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

I think Semedo and Ait Nouri are excellent additions. I also like the look of Hoever and Marcal is great cover as well. So I am very happy indeed with the work carried out on the defence.

Further forward I have a few concerns. If Hoever quickly becomes a regular at RCB and we swap sides for Boly then it frees up Saiss to be an extra option in midfield. Without that we are definitely relying quite a bit on Vitinha and he is totally unproven, although highly regarded.

Up top Jota wasn’t seeing as much game time due to Podence and Neto so to cash in for a very decent fee made sense even if it saddened me at the time. The huge question mark seems to be whether Fabio can step up to the mark if Raul were to pick up a significant knock. It’s a risk, even if we believe there is a generational talent there.

So defence better, not sure about midfield, one proper concern about up front. However finding another striker to sit as a backup and block Fabio would also have been pointless.

The key for scoring the window seems to be the development of Vitinha and Fabio.

 

[PuntsWolf]

I disagree, nobody really knows about those 3 or Hoever. A month ago Esteves was being touted as our Doherty upgrade he's gone to Reading, it's just guesswork, there isn't a big enough body of work to know how any will pan out. It's one of the reasons we've took two on loan rather than money up front as our net spend was around £20m or actually in profit if you include Costa and Cav.

I know nothing about Esteves. I said it at the time, but I always find it strange that people get over excited about players they know nothing about and have never seen play but are good on computer games.

The balance of probability tells you an 18 year old with 100 mins ever in senior football, in a poor league tells you they aren’t going to come to a top half PL team and make a big impact. So to completely ignore that and pin your colours to the mast despite evidence to the contrary (and no actual real life evidence of your own) is bizarre.

 

[Tony Towner]

Ok. Literally loads of posters on here said they would “wait until the window is shut to give my assessment of our business”.

Let’s have those assessments now. Are we happy with the squad and starting 11? Have we improved the side?*

*I am genuinely interested before people start reading too much in to my post.

I think Spiers' piece is accurate, I just don't think you can say because of the age of the players we've signed. The widely accepted best case shopping list was:
New RWB
Raul Back up
New CH
Jonny cover for injury
AM

On paper we've done all those things, but because 4 of the 6 are 20 or under I don't think you can say with any great certainty either way. I'd have liked one or two more without question marks to have been brought in instead of those who do have them. I still think we took too little for Doherty, but in the grand scheme of things now that's not important and ideally wouldn't have sold Jota, but understand why we did.

 

[PuntsWolf]

On the window.

On paper 7/10. Impossible to grade it higher. Has the potential to become an 8 within the year and a 9 within 18 months.

But at the same time has the potential to become a 4/10 (or lower) if for the money we’ve spent only Semedo is playing in the first XI for a top half team and the others have lost value.

The only way to increase our current rating would have been to have signed genuine first XI upgrades at CB and CM and as a result be £60m+ worse off.

 

[Premier Quality]

At the start of the window, my priorities were a midfielder who could create and score as well as work hard, a centre back with pace who could distribute the ball and an upgrade on doc.

We’ve definately upgraded on doc but not the other two. We have however met Nuno’s requirements for a bench that gives him options, and we have players with really high potential if we give them game time this year - and we’ve not lost any of our important players.

So not the transfer window I wanted, but it’s the transfer window Nuno wanted, and I like young players with potential to be better than our current level so I’m actually reasonably happy about it all. Still would have liked one more first teamer though....

 

[Deleted Cyber]

We have spent a lot of money and increased the ability and depth of the squad without increasing the ability of the first choice 11 much. There is a lot of emphasis on Daniel Podence and Pedro Neto with the changes in style and their performance is key to how we also perform as they need to score and score regularly. 8 each in the season minimum.

Semedo looks a decent replacement and an upgrade on Doherty but we will miss Jonny. However Marcal looks a decent back up defensively so losing junior Rubes wont hurt too much. Rayan completes a defensive selection that should make us even more solid and hard to score against ( as we have not been that so far)Hoever comes with high praise and has looked competent so far and can play in various spots which is Nunos prefernce.

Vitanha is one I hope does well. He is the Moutinho replacement that sadly looks necessary. Moutinhos performance so far is way off his usual standard and it may be that age is catching up with him. In Fabio we have bought potential and he has shown he has decent instincts and the ability to find space but he has done little with it. Very early days but he does not look 35 m player so far. Neither did Raul for the first two months when he was converting about 1 chance in six but once he picked up we all know what happened so its early days and Fabio is Young.

I think Wolves fans have to accept that 90% of who we would like to be linked with wont happen as they are any or all of 1.Not linked to Jorge 2. Not Portuguese. 3. Too expensive 4. Unlikely to turn a profit when sold. If we do accept that then we can stop gnashing teeth.

I am still hopeful for top half but do see us as behind the big six , Everton and Leicester although Man United could be completely imploding having shown so much promise for the latter part of last season. FA cup please?

 

[Carrotdude]

I’m pleased with the window overall, I think this season might be a bit of a struggle though while the younger players bed in and Nuno sorts out his system etc. Especially in the current climate.

With a bit of patience though this squad could go on to great things in a couple of years time.

 

[Stan Hullis]

I'm undecided.

Semedo is a 10/10 signing, no doubt and will prove himself (IMO) to be a significant upgrade on Doherty when he is fully fit.

Fabio Silva/Vitinha/Hoever/Ait-Nouri for me are all currently 6/10, they all have fantastic potential but I don't think any of them can be described as a significant upgrade on last season's XI but I suspect we could be sat here in 12-18 months time looking back saying they are all 9-10/10 signings, equally they could flop.

Marcal is a steady 7/10 signing, strengthens the squad and can cover 2 positions.

Agree that Doherty was probably £5m or so too cheap, but then I think we got good value for Jota.

 

[Del Woppio]

If, the day after the Sevilla game and nuno's comments of us needing more players, Jeff had come out and said that we'd have a net spend of zero, and not buy a senior player for either centre back or centre mid, I don't think people would have been very happy tbh.

For all the questions we have in the back 3 and centre mid, I don't think that the answers are Saiss or Dendonker, if we're serious about top 6. They're decent players, and good lads, but we need better if we're to seriously break through.

Don't get me wrong, I'm really optimistic about all 4 of the youngsters, particularly Vitinha, and tbh I think I'd actually find the season more exciting if we just played them, and actually used the senior options (Marcal, Saiss, Dendonker) as the back up and let the kids play football, accept the mistakes and the inconsistency and sped up their development. I don't think our best eleven is good enough for 7th, so let's just have some fun with this season and go again next year.

 

[BGreenWolf]

I'm absolutely fine with the window. We've strengthened the squad hugely, and that was the primary goal of this window for me (I'll put it this way- if we'd have had these sort of options off the bench last season, I have absolutely no doubt we'd be playing in Europe this season). We've kept the majority of our star players amid significant interest, we've got a good price for Jota, we've upgraded Doherty, and we've brought in some fabulously exciting talent who will hopefully be in a position to be making a substantial impact in the near future, Neto-style.

Personally speaking, I wanted the mythical box-to-box midfielder who offers us a different option, but I do think it's probably time that we came to terms with the fact that Nuno and his system don't really care for such a thing, and most of our creativity and drive comes from the wingbacks instead. Throughout the Nuno era, the only player who's even come close to that has been N'Diaye, and, love him though I might, he was hardly the most fundamental part of our system that year.

If, the day after the Sevilla game and nuno's comments of us needing more players, Jeff had come out and said that we'd have a net spend of zero, and not buy a senior player for either centre back or centre mid, I don't think people would have been very happy tbh.

Well, that's just a question of framing, surely? If you'd have said after the Sevilla game that we were going to purchase a new set of wingbacks including a first-choice for Barcelona and someone who would be playing in the Champions League semi-finals, that we were going to be snapping up some of Europe's hottest talent, and that we were going to be tying Nuno, Coady, Jimenez and Traore down to new contracts, most people would have been pretty happy.

We have also bought two players who have played as centre backs for a substantial chunk of their careers so far, and I would be very unsurprised if that's where Marcal and Hoever did most of their playing for us in the long term.

 

[Langers]

I do think it's worth noting that a few players - Donk and Podence in particular - took a bit of time to settle into the squad/the PL/life in England before they became first team regulars, and I think we could see the same with some of our new signings from this summer. So just because they don't feature now, or even over the next few games doesn't mean that Nuno isn't expecting them to be regular starters as the season progresses.

The obvious exception to this is Fabio unless we decide to go with 2 up top because Raul is undroppable but I see no reason why the likes of Vitinha won't become key players for us this season.

I think we have to place a bit of faith in our scouting system when looking at the business we've done. IF they work out as we hope, it's been a thrifty and exciting window. If most of them don't work out, it'll have been a disappointment but I don't think we can tell which way it will go at such an early stage.

I do think that there will be a degree of frustration at the speed the club develops - it appears to be gradual which I believe is no bad thing provided we don't lose the momentum of the past 3 years.

 

[Carrotdude]

On Fabio Silva, Id like to see us use him in a front two when we need a goal, if we can get Adama doing what he does best and getting down the wing and putting crosses in it could be quite productive having them both in there.

 

[BGreenWolf]

I would be very unsurprised indeed if Hoever, Vitinha and Ait-Nouri were fixtures in the first 11 after a few months, yeah.

 

[Jack Regan]

Definitely improved the squad but I don't think currently that the starting XI is any better than this time last year. Semedo may well be an upgrade on Doherty, but until he was sold it wasn't an essential change that needed making in the first place. We've spent 35 million on a player who isn't going to get in the team and haven't signed anything to improve the midfield in the short term. Obviously it's early days with the new signings and they have massive potential (Marcal aside) so in three months time we may be in a better place (six points from the first 4 games isn't an awful return by any stretch) time will tell.

 

[Johnny75]

I thought we needed two things before the end of the window and that was a back up to Raul and a replacement RWB.

I think we've improved the starting XI with Semedo and got a back up to Raul. I would think Silva is going to get better than we've seen so far and hopefully when Nuno has enough faith in him we see Raul at full tilt for 60 minutes with Silva coming on for the last 30.

Semedo is a huge upgrade on Doc, he has speed and the ability to cross for a start and has shown he likes to get forward and have a pop at goal too. Boly looks more comfortable beside him and Hoever so we have RWB sewn up for a few years, much the same as LWB.

Vitinha is an unknown and maybe he is the midfielder to knit the attack and defence and become Moutinho's heir. It was almost a perfect window as I would've like to have seen a ball carrying midfielder (an 8 or 10) come in but that's just being greedy. We have improved the sqaud and now don't need to flog the first XI to death every 90 and can have faith that if we somebody is a bit off colour they can be changed or replaced.

A solid 7/10 window.

 

[prawnking]

Have to call it a 7/10 window too, I agree with Punts that this could end up higher or lower depending on how quickly and well the younglings integrate.

Aside from Marcal and Semedo, who both look astute purchases, the kids are unknown quantities; but high-quality ones.

I think Hoever may need (and will get) more time to integrate before he plays much, and Ait-Nouri will hopefully play plenty. The key component of this window's success or failure for me is how much game-time Silva and Vitinha get. I hope they earn Nuno's trust and get time to play and develop, especially as most of our stars bar Rui look in erratic form at best right now.

Generally excited to see more of all the new signings, more from Neto and Podence, Shabani fit and available, and how Adama fits into all this

 

[pr0sl0]

I never felt that the back three was an urgent place where we needed upgrading, so not getting a new CB in - except for Marçal, who I reckon was bought to be rotational cover for both LCB and LWB - isn't a big problem. I thought the key thing was upgrading the wingbacks (specifically, upgrading Doherty and getting better depth across both sides) because they're so essential to our style of play, and we've done that well. I'm holding judgement on Vitinha for now but my expectation is that he's the long-term replacement for Moutinho, and isn't just here to be another kid on the bench, so I do feel the midfield is better. He also seems able to play in the hole in the 3-4-1-2 that may be more common this season, so, while also reserving judgement on whether Silva is an upgrade (or even par replacement) for Jota, I'm not uncomfortable with the range of options there either. Overall the squad looks and feels stronger. Not much stronger in the first XI, of course, as many have said, but improving our bench depth was a key priority, and it happened, so... overall, I'd say an 8/10 for me. A good window which would only become great if we'd signed some proper world class superstar to come straight into the first XI, and I think it'll only be once we get CL that that happens.