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In this way for him transfer window losers…
Aston Villa
Aston Villa had many of the make-up parts of a strong Premier League team last season. The four players Dean Smith gave the most minutes were Jack Grealish, Tyrone Mings, Douglas Luiz and John McGinn – the kind of backbone many of his rivals would envy.
The problems came from undermining a bit more in a supporting cast that didn’t deserve to share screen time with the lead actors. Anwar El Ghazi played 34 matches. Frederic Guilbert and Ahmed Elmohamady put up an incredibly disappointing battle to start on the right back. Four goalkeepers were used. Wesley Moraes and Mbwana Samatta raised more questions than answers. Grealish created 53 more chances than his closest partner and completed 20 more dribbles.
The problems were obvious, but no team has been more ruthless in identifying and correcting theirs. Emiliano Martínez (28) brings the security and comfort that Tom Heaton, Pepe Reina and Orjan Nyland could not. Matty Cash (23) is a ridiculously good upgrade to his position. Ross Barkley (26) will assume much of the creative load. Ollie Watkins (24) already has more than half the Premier League goals that any Villa center forward achieved in 2019/20, and Bertrand Traore (25) is sure to provide tough competition.
Grealish is still his gem But the crown has seldom shone so bright
More than most teams before them, and it must be said that billionaire homeowners do help, Villa has sought to build on survival rather than resting on his laurels and hoping the bare minimum will suffice again. Suso has passed as sports director, with Johan Lange in his place. They spent £ 130.25 million on 12 transfers in the last summer transfer window and £ 78 million on four. Average spend per player has almost doubled.
“Quality instead of quantity” was the phrase Dean Smith used last week and it is the perfect summary of Villa’s business. No club had a better transfer window. The proof is already in a pretty delicious pudding.
Carlo Ancelotti
Everton ran them an incredibly close second, a team completely transformed over the course of three days in September.
Allan arrived on the 5th, James Rodriguez on the 7th and Abdoulaye Doucoure on the 8th to instantly reshape a previously heavy and uninventive midfield that lacked energy in a full engine room with equal levels of style and industry.
Carlo Ancelotti could have asked for little more when Everton completed that rare feat of meeting a manager’s first-choice goals before the start of the Premier League season. A handful of clubs were able to do one or the other, but the Toffees were one of the few that managed both.
An impressive opening month to the season even allowed them a chance to be patient with their middle-half options before bringing Ben Godfrey to roughly halfway through. your February assessment. Perhaps it can be argued that Dominic Calvert-Lewin is supporting the center-forward position all alone, but a look at Tottenham shows that it is not so easy to sign a replacement for a generational English striker.
Everton can and has been accused of many things in recent years, but not supporting their coaches in the transfer market is not one of them. The opposite is true: they have been too supportive of the coaches. Ronald Koeman and Marco Silva had £ 200 million in their grand visions, while Sam Allardyce received a generous budget in a panic-filled winter of 2018. Those three spent more on the individual signings of Yannick Bolasie, Davy Klaassen, Cenk Tosun, Jean-Philippe Gbamin, Moise Kean and Alex Iwobi than Ancelotti has received on any player, but the Italian will be more than happy to add the layers of paint. They need to throw shit face to face in the desperate hope that something will finally stick.
His power of attraction has helped, but this has been a much more focused, studious, and diligent transfer window than usual at Goodison Park. Finally there is a connection between what the coach, the board, the players and the fans want. All they needed was for Everton to appoint a coach to whom they felt indebted, one who would show them how a proper club should function, whom they would likely lose petrified.
Arsenal
“I have a very clear plan and the specificity of the players, the positions and the balance of the squad that we need to compete with the rest of the best teams in the country,” said Mikel Arteta. in July. “We cannot be a team that has to sell its best player to try to bring in and improve our squad, that’s for sure.”
Those words resonated, but actions always speak louder. Arsenal kept Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, basically paid for the signing of the excellent Gabriel Magalhaes by selling someone who had been their substitute goalkeeper for all but two months of a ten-year stint in North London, and accepted all three. or three from Willian. four bad games in exchange for each brilliant one.
What was a great transfer window became excellent once Arteta sent his late party invitations. Central midfield was the last position where Arsenal felt truly lacking in quality options and for the club to make its fourth most expensive signing to correct that is a remarkable declaration of intent.
Above all, it has outlined the faith that Arteta has earned in such a short time. The mess he inherited at Arsenal included a transfer committee that involved Raul Sanllehi, Francis Cagigao, Huss Fahmy, Edu and the manager – cooks with apparently the same amount of influence that led to a confusing broth. That has been streamlined, sadly in the case of the scouting layoffs, culminating in Arteta’s promotion last month from head coach to manager. Their claim that everyone at the club is finally “on the same page” is not a vague and empty cliché, but a sign that they are headed in the right direction long before Arsene Wenger left.
Michael Edwards
Even ignoring the concept of paying installments, also known as the method used by almost every club in the world in most deals, Liverpool have had an excellent transfer window. The temptation might have been to stick around after the success of relative inaction in the transfer window last summer, but the team needed a slight update for the challenges ahead.
Thiago, Diogo Jota and Kostas Tsimikas provide competition in key areas, but Liverpool once again excelled when it comes to sales. Dejan Lovren and Ovie Ejaria generated around £ 15 million between them; Rhian Brewster and Ki-Jana Hoever were traded for more than double that amount even though neither of them had made a single top league appearance in their larval careers.
Liverpool’s cousin is real and no longer an isolated affliction from Bournemouth. Michael Edwards embarrasses most of his contemporaries.
Daniel levy
But no Premier League club executive will be considered to have had a more successful few months than Daniel Levy. The launch of a glitzy documentary and the arrival of an Olympic, World and European champion to accompany a returning prodigal son who won every possible trophy at the sport’s biggest club has brought elite life to a team that has so far often seemed to be flying. in this scenario, off the field if not on it.
Few can blame Levy for finally turning Tottenham’s modern prominence into a more recognizable global brand and platform. Alex Morgan, Gareth Bale and Jose Mourinho transcend the game as personalities. But each of them still have a lot to offer their respective teams outside of social media engagement and superstar status. That’s an important, but often difficult balance, and Levy, who tends to favor the latter, has done it well.
This was also his first summer transfer window since 2015 in which he did not sign any deadlines aside from the totally sterile 2018. Well done for turning in your coursework early for once.
The four best challengers
The four clubs that finished immediately below the Champions League qualifying places have suffered that setback in their collective pace. Each has completed the remarkably sensible kind of business that points toward a global strategy led by a smart manager and an exploration team, driven by results but never driven entirely by them.
In other words, Leicester would have pursued Timothy Castagne, Cengiz Under and Wesley Fofana regardless of the competition they were in; that Tottenham’s sensible summer It never depended on getting to the Europa League; that the meticulous and logical rotation of the Lobos team was inevitable; that Arsenal had specific goals in mind for months rather than weeks and met almost all of them.
Between Brendan Rodgers, Mourinho, Nuno Espirito Santo and Mikel Arteta, the rivals closest to the top four from last season have coaches with a clear, realistic and pragmatic vision of what they want, and structures around them to facilitate it. At least two of the teams that qualified for the Champions League cannot say the same. Throw in Ancelotti at Everton and at this rate Smith at Aston Villa, and the VIP party at Europe’s head table is sure to crash.
Leeds
There’s something to be said for settling on a transfer goal and stubbornly pursuing it until the contract is signed. Liverpool got into the habit of identifying specific players and refused even to contemplate alternatives, hoping Virgil van Dijk would be available and barely blinking at the dazzling cost of bringing Alisson to Anfield.
But Marcelo Bielsa is different. Their system is designed with transfer flexibility in mind, without ever depending on a player reaching a crowded market. While Pep Guardiola demands the best to implement his style correctly, Leeds have a coach capable of adjusting his demands if necessary.
Watkins was his main forward target at a time when Rodrigo was deemed unrealistic. Ben White and Josko Gvardiol were the center-backs they obviously wanted, but Robin Koch and Diego Llorente were good options to keep in reserve. Raphinha was only brought in on the deadline day after many other routes were followed and abandoned.
It is not a case of Leeds settling for second best, more an example of a coach who is not too stubborn to see past the end of his glasses. He and they have only been in the Premier League for four games, but both have been mainstays of the top flight this summer.
Chelsea
Whether any of this actually works remains to be seen, but it was a lot of fun while it lasted. Chelsea is a timeless reminder that fantasy tends to be better than reality.
Newcastle
It’s not perfect but still very practical and manager-proof, which is particularly helpful when that incumbent is likely on a losing streak from being fired.
Roy Hodgson
The man made by far his most expensive signing at the age of 73 and that’s really beautiful. Eberechi Eze, Michy Batshuayi, and Nathan Ferguson are solid additions, particularly in light of Wilfried Zaha’s stay. For a team that has finished no higher than 10th or below 15th in seven consecutive Premier League seasons, this was an ideal consolidation of their stability.
Brighton
Getting £ 10.5 million for Anthony Knockaert is equivalent to witchcraft.
Alexis Sanchez and Henrikh Mkhitaryan
Let that be a reminder why exchange transactions almost never happen.
Matt stead
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