Transfer Window Reflection Thread

We’ve now locked the January Thread and set this one up to help people navigate more easily.

Personally I've nothing negative to offer. We've signed four players in a transfer window, in areas where we needed to sign players. A right full back and forwards.

So essentially I am happy that we have signed what we needed, and I look forward to seeing these new players hopefully fit in well, and provide us with a decent end to our first season back in the EFL.

I'm certainly not going to whinge like some are, who are practically apoplectic about the club in the transfer window, based on mere media speculation about who we might sign. They are even moaning about the non-arrival of Andrew Dallas, based on media speculation that he might be coming to us. A player that hasn't even gone anywhere in the transfer window Some of these people speak as if they are the manager or can second guess him. I'd have thought they should be long past trying to anticipate Paul Hurst's player business activity.

It is what it is. We needed players and we've signed players. Job done.

Some of the comments on social media the last couple of days have been embarrassing to read people tagging players/owners etc..

Looking forward to seeing the new guys play hopefully there an improvement on the last set of loans we had...

If players don't want to come here in general  we need to evaluate why, perhaps there is an opportunity to move the training ground further west towards Brigg/Barnetby would that help long term?

We got the positions we needed but I think most people were hoping for longer-term signings than just a few months. PH is thorough and I trust him to have done the homework on the players. The problem with signing players for such short periods is that if they are any good they won't be here for long. The perceived lack of ambition is bound to be noticed by the better players in the squad as well, and we might end up losing some in the summer.

I think the signings we have made are promising Emmanuel is a class above.

George is 22 so not an untried youngster and the lad from Norwich who,s name ends in Peter's   come with excellent reports.

O' Neil is highly thought of at Preston.

So let's see how we get on until the end of the season with two games a week most weeks we will need all the squad firing on all cylinders .

I expect we will finish 12th or thereabouts which will be acceptable to me on our 1st season back in the league .

Let's get behind the new lads as well as the rest of the squad because all this negativity is good for no one.

Dine and dusted
Move on..

If 2 of 3 loan signings start banging in a few goals everyone will be happy

If they pan out to be ineffective then it'll be moans..

Let's just see what happens

Personally I am disappointed that we were unable to bring in a striker on a permanent basis.

Of course we don't mind loan players, as we have had a number of success stories over the years, however historically there's not been many strikers/attackers that we've taken on loan, who has gone on to score a few goals and done well, which we have managed to keep/sign past there loans (ie thinking about people like Martin Paterson or Steve Kabba).

Please don't say that, "well Andy Smith came back", because resigning a young 5th choice centre back will be a lot easier than a striker who's managed to bag say 8+ goals in 15-20 games, during the second half of the season.

This for me leaves us very short in the summer, with McAtee leaving, Taylor aging/becoming more injury prone and Orsi (albeit one good game) still being unproven.

I'm also not saying that a permanent signing is an instance success, but signing some one like Dallas (whether that was possible or not) would of been a big statement of intent from the club.

However we are, were we are... personally I don't believe we can hit the playoffs (love to be proven wrong) and I don't think that we will get relegated (although our current league form is worrying) and i will get behind the new signings. I just hope we don't get a run of bad luck and pick up further injuries or setbacks.

Personally, I think we will go through the motions rest of this season but I hope that the club really thinks about their targets, future plans and transfer policy in the summer.

Ps, the fans forum may be interesting.

Did they say Emmanuell signed to the end of the season initially which makes me wonder if we have a option to increase that or did I misread what they reported.

Quoted from grimsby pete

Did they say Emmanuell signed to the end of the season initially which makes me wonder if we have a option to increase that or did I misread what they reported.

Emmanuel is clearly a minimum top end League one player or potentially a Championship player.

It is a big coup for us don't get me wrong, however IF he plays well and proves he is over his ongoing health issues, I am 95% sure he will not be here next season.
Personally I am looking at this deal as basically a loan till the end of the season.

I don't think it's unreasonable to be disappointed with what's happened.
I do hope the 4 incomers do well. I think O'Neill and Emmanuel look like good signings, and whilst I'm distinctly underwhelmed by Lloyd's record he's surely got to be an improvement on playing with no one up front hasn't he?
God knows what the Norwich lad will do - none of the other young attacking loanees have done very much have they?  Richardson, Pebble, Symonds, Windsor, Bell, Gomis etc etc
We've banked £500k from cup comps, we've got recrod sth sales and the biggest average crowds for god knows how many years. We've got owners who've said they are prepared to invest and off the pitch the club is in it's best place for c 25 years. We've recruited an ace Head of Recruitment ,who surely must've opened more doors n possibilities for targets, yet still we are scrabbling around in the final few hours trying to find any waif and stray who's willing to come here.
I don't believe for a second that Lloyd or the lad from Norwich were amongst our main list of targets.
Despite all of the good things that's happened , the transfer window has just ended up in a Fenty like  same old, same old last minute 'desperation' signings
I thought we'd left that behind - I will certainly be interested to listen into the fans forum!

ps to finish on a brighter note;  let's not forget we have Orsi & Scannell available - that could be like having the 2 quality signings we needed