ToffeeWeb

Mike while I don’t completely disagree with what you say, the fact remains that with under 6 games to go we could and should have got European football, my main point was to say the owners should have backed Moyes in the winter, had they done that and got us a half decent right back for instance then we might have nicked the extra 5/7 points that would have got us European football.
As for the teams operating in another universe, I did talk about Spurs who almost went down, and Chelsea who have spent a fortune and not got any European football. aren’t our owners supposed to be billionaires!!
I could have spoke about Fulham who took 2 from Madrid recently, or Brentford who smashed there transfer record to sign Sangare, but I want us to compete as high up as possible, we sell out 50k seats, we shouldn’t use Brenford and Fulham as a bench mark.
Buy a quality right back early doors, follow up with a better striker than we have at the club, bring in an established Premier league wide player as we know we need one. Once this is done cash in on Patterson, Mcneil and Beto as there contracts are running down.
This is how professional clubs are run, not scrimping over a few months wages, serious clubs get there players in then clear out the dead wood.
You can say we wasn’t good enough all you like but 32 games we was in the mixer, but the wheels fell off.
Signings in January can be massive for teams and our owners choked and we fell off, we can blame the squad, Moyes or whoever, but fact is with the injuries to Braithwaite and Grealish, plus Ndiaye coming back from the afcon out of form, then the lack of goals within the front line left us short, a simple signing could have proven the difference.
A decent right back gives us Obrien for cb when Keane and Tarks came up short, a player like Walbeck could have come in and bagged us the necessary goals to push us on (didn’t have to be him, I’m just pointing to the fact not every player needs to be a world beater or a marquee signing, Vardy, Callum Wilson or Lukaku who didn’t get any game time at all 2nd half of the season at Napoli would all have grabbed us a few extra goals)
In my humble opinion your mind set is one of a blues fan who accepts mediocrity, with owners throwing us a few quid here and there instead of finding ways to make us more competitive.
You speak about 3 in, let’s be honest about the 3, George isn’t anything like the level of Grealish, and he was already with the squad last season. Norgard has to be one of the first names on the team sheet if he’s to be up to the level of Gana as he played almost every minute he was available to us for. Hackney looks decent too but he’s not proven in any top league so he’s hard to judge.
Anyway Mike each to there own mate, let’s hope we finish the window strongly and we can kick on.

Anthony, all those clubs you mentioned except Bournemouth are exponentially better off financially than we are. They have revenues and SCR limits that are 3-4X ours and therefore can pay pre-emptive prices for players that we can’t even sniff at. They operate in a different universe financially. Would you care to compare us to Real Madrid?

And we’re doing just as well as “proper” club Bournemouth. As of today they’ve brought in three new starters and lost one, and we’ve signed three new starters and lost none. Business continues.

As for us having a “golden opportunity” to pass the RS and reach the Champions League, all I can do is shake my head and say I truly admire your dreams. In my view we were never anywhere near good enough to accomplish that. Our last seven games weren’t a collapse of a quality Euro-bound team. They were, if you look at our 11 and our manager, a reversion to the mean.

Sign Alistair Johnson, Grealish (as a 10 if N’Diaye bounces out) Ritchie and Delap then all is forgiven.. I have a suspicion that we get Eddie Howe next summer too! UTFT

We want our Ritchie back!!!

Id prefer Nicolas Jackson on loan. I think there is a player there, if he is the main man.