I feel as a Charlton fan it was roughly a 7.5/10 window.
As a Championship side it was more like 5/10
We didn't upgrade our midfield, we didn't really upgrade our defence significantly (not that it needed it tbf) and all of our attacking talent haven't started too brightly.
Need more time to know for sure, but I was hoping to see Kelman & Knibbs play together a lot more and try to build the same understanding that Knibbs/Smith had as I think that potential is there.
I think Tanto hasn't offered much from his limited chances, looked better in pre-season.
Apter and Carey seem the best fits so far with their workrates and how well they've adjusted to the squad.
We will see in time but as far as a Championship transfer window goes, it's very average or even below average, we are just so accustomed to severe neglect the fees spent have surprised people, when they're actually small fees in the grand scheme of the league.
Slightly concerned we haven't done enough now personally, and we are completely relying on players making the step up instead of signing proven quality, but I don't think we had the financial pull to sign proven quality Championship forwards and midfielders, so our best options were doing what we did, or finding gems abroad.
Way, way better than any in recent years and much better than I suspect many of us would have predicted.
This is, hopefully, the first of many years of continuous progression where we will see quality injected every summer (maybe in the January windows too - Fukuda could well be a January arrival in the next window). The strategy has clearly been to invest in younger, high-performers from league one supplemented by experienced Championship players. That makes sense given the huge sums being thrown around now. We need to build steadily and sustainably. I think it's absolutely crazy the way that some fans have already made up their minds that many of the signings are duds - after so few games. Let's get them all properly match fit, more accustomed to each other, finding the right formations and partnerships, and then we'll see what's what. Personally, I am confident that the large majority of our signings will do well. Have a bit of patience and confidence in Nathan Jones/Phil Chapple - they know what they're doing.
As for Fofana, I really don't know him or how close we were to landing him. What I do know is that we've got a lot of attacking options now so it's not like previous windows where a missed target has a hugely detrimental impact on the team.
All the signings make sense in that they look to build on what we had and fit into our line up and style of play.
Question marks about what were mainly league one stars ability to step up remain. Kam, Tanto, Kelman and even Knibbs not shown much yet IMHO and last seasons players are not having it all their own way.
We only lost one real first teamer in Small, when many fretted unnecessarily about Ramsay, Jones or others being sold, but we have brought in Apter and Bree in his position.
We know that Jones teams take time to gel but then get stronger but our spend, while big for us, is small (pun intended) compared to just about everyone else in the division bar basket case Sheffield Wednesday.
Unless you have silly money like Brum and Disney FC I don't think we can expect much more but while the defence has generally looked strong goals seem hard to find so far.
My pre-season prediction of 15th still feels about right.
The Fofana failure, if it was ever on, is troubling. For weeks NJ implied/said we only need a RWB. The late Fofana effort suggests that NJ has not been impressed by his strikers, none of whom bar the injured Godden, have scored above League One.
It was a good window but this is a sting in the tail.
I guess we could compare it to our previous Championship transfer window.
In that one I think we brought in;
Conor Gallagher Beram Kayal Tomer Hemed Adam Matthews Deji Oshilaja Sam Field Tom Lockyer Chuks Aneke Jonathan Leko Macauley Bonne Erhum Oztumer Josh Cullen - returning on loan
As ever, the current season will hinge largely on key players staying injury free. In our previous two Championship seasons, key players like Vetokele, Diarra, Kashi, Bauer, Williams, Field and Taylor spent considerable periods out injured and of course, Gallagher was recalled, which was a real killer.
To me, on the face of it, the recent window has been fairly similar to the last one, although you could argue that in 2019, we had lost some pretty good players from the squad....like Dijksteel and Aribo.
We kept Jones, Ramsay and Coventry. We’ve added to a settled squad with unproven but high potential players. It’s up to NJ to get the tune he wants out of them. He will either be vindicated or sacked.
The window been excellent the board can’t do anymore brought in the players Jones wanted and backed him with more money then we expected exciting players like Apter , Knibbs really looking forward to seeing these once there settled .. now after a good start to the season ie performances it’s time to getting the players fitter , getting them into the way Jones wants to play .. and keep picking up points when we can .. some games will be to much for us but over the course of the season we know have the players and squad to stay in this league
I've thought all along we will finish about 18th, seems about right. We are going to have more weeeks like the one we have just had and the fans really need to stick it out this season, having consecutive seasons in the championship for the first time in a decade is not to be sniffed at.
It’s very early days but the policy of signing good, young League 1 players with the potential to develop further is a sound and pragmatic one. The amount of money being spent on established Championship players is a little crazy and it is not an arena in which we can (or wish) to compete.
The players and the team will need time to bed in, although this is an unforgiving division. The one area of concern for me is a lack of creativity in midfield, although finding such a player at an affordable cost is easier said than done.
Pursuing a policy of incremental improvement makes complete sense and it’s easy to forget that, just over 18 months ago, we had gone 18 games without a win and were looking anxiously over our shoulders at the trapdoor to League 2.
Now concerned we have just bought lots of good league one players who cannot score goals in the Championship
This is where I'm at. I am definitely content with the money spent and have no complaints about Jones pick on players.
A big positive is how we kept hold of our own premium players, which shows one of two things; 1) The players aren't that well sought after elsewhere. 2) The players want to remain at the club and see the project through.
Of course I hope it's the later.
A window above what I would have expected after such a long period of disappointment and despair.
The owners are doing enough. Can Jones, the season will show! 9/10
Good window, strengthened in all areas, brought in a mix of experienced players at this level and some exciting younger players that we can hopefully develop into better footballers.
Only minor quibbles are needing cover for Coventry, if Bell is enough cover for Edwards, and all of our strikers (apart from an unfortunately aging Godden) being untried at this level
Too early to say. Some of the new recruits haven't started a game & quite a few haven't lasted a full 90 mins. I know that's now the nature of football, what with 5 subs allowed, but until the majority of the 10(?) new signings get a proper run in the team who knows if they are Kinsellas or Kirks.
I suppose people will say it could have been better, not sure how though. We have brought players in and Jones now needs to work on them and find a favoured line up, it's simply no good declaring Kelman, Knibbs or Oloafe are no good, they were good enough to be signed. Very happy with this window, and very happy with the owners backing Jones.
Very happy. Board have really proved how intent they are on taking us very forward and have picked up some really good players in there. Really liking the look of Rob Apter and Sonny Carey and think it was clever bringing them two together. Still think Kelman will come good and have also liked the look of Bell. Too early to say on Knibbs, Tanto and JRC but they look like good signings on paper and you back Jones to get the best out of them. Not completely sold on Kaminski yet and think he's looked shaky in some games. Will be interesting how many minutes we get from Reece Burke.
Keeping Kayne Ramsay was one of the most important parts of the window and can't believe there wasn't more interest for him. Jones and Coventry both staying is also a bonus.
Think we'll be alright this season. Will be very tough and there'll be a fair few bad losses in there but I think there's at least 5 or 6 teams who are worse or on par with us
Apter, Carey, Kaminski and Bell have settled very smoothly into the 'first team' The striker signings have yet to make their mark, not helped by Nathan's seeming indecision around his first choices Bree is a strange one, is he anywhere near match fit ? Knibbs, Rankin (dread) Costello
All in all .. I'll give it 6.5/10 (so far) .. hoping for a 9 by Christmas !
For a sensibly run club moving from League 1 to the Championship its a good window where the manager has been supported.
The issue is the Championship is utterly bonkers with multiple clubs spending way beyond their means and it ends up skewing the optics on our business. Wrexham need to get promoted in the next 2 seasons or they're in the PSR shit, irrespective of their commercial revenue.
I guess we could compare it to our previous Championship transfer window.
In that one I think we brought in;
Conor Gallagher Beram Kayal Tomer Hemed Adam Matthews Deji Oshilaja Sam Field Tom Lockyer Chuks Aneke Jonathan Leko Macauley Bonne Erhum Oztumer Josh Cullen - returning on loan
As ever, the current season will hinge largely on key players staying injury free. In our previous two Championship seasons, key players like Vetokele, Diarra, Kashi, Bauer, Williams, Field and Taylor spent considerable periods out injured and of course, Gallagher was recalled, which was a real killer.
To me, on the face of it, the recent window has been fairly similar to the last one, although you could argue that in 2019, we had lost some pretty good players from the squad....like Dijksteel and Aribo.
To be honest, I think we've had a miles better window than that one. Cullen and Gallagher obviously walk into this team but I'm not sure the rest would get in. As you say, losing Aribo and Dijksteel was also a massive loss that season whereas the only real loss this time round was Small which I think we've replaced very well
I think it's been a very good window - much better than anything we've seen in the last decade or so. I think it's reasonable to expect that most if not all of these signings will go on to make significant contributions to this season, even if some haven't really featured so far (such as Knibbs and Kelman).
My concern is that, with the sole exception of Sheffield Wednesday, our competitors have also recruited very well.
I think we have had a great window. Far better than I thought we would have, we have actually spent money and yes the players we have bought can be seen as gambles as unproven at the level but one worth taking imo. I trust Jones to get the team playing and Im confident we wont be going down, build again next year.
A decent window, but that's a bare minimum with the amount of money being spent elsewhere. And the thing we don't know is how our wage structure compares with our rivals. I might have wanted us to sign player X, but if other clubs are offering a lot more money, that might not have been realistic, without completely distorting our wage structure.
Personally I wouldn't have bought Kelman, who cost 1/3 of our transfer business, as I'd have rather put the money towards a really good central midfielder, rather than a squad payer like Rankin-Costello. And I'm not convinced our style of football will create many chances for Kelman.
Up front, I would have gone for someone more established in the Championship, for example Ryan Hardie if we could compete with Wrexham on the wages as his release clause was only £700k. Or an experienced target man striker like Michael Smith, if we could persuade him to move south again, or similar. For a team like us, that physical option would have been useful, and in the absence of Godden we do lack Championship experience up front. We have a lot of "potential" up front, but there's nothing wrong with a short term solution as well.
I know NJ doesn't like loans, but I do wonder if we've unnecessarily cut ourselves off from the loan market this summer due to this.
I guess we could compare it to our previous Championship transfer window.
In that one I think we brought in;
Conor Gallagher Beram Kayal Tomer Hemed Adam Matthews Deji Oshilaja Sam Field Tom Lockyer Chuks Aneke Jonathan Leko Macauley Bonne Erhum Oztumer Josh Cullen - returning on loan
As ever, the current season will hinge largely on key players staying injury free. In our previous two Championship seasons, key players like Vetokele, Diarra, Kashi, Bauer, Williams, Field and Taylor spent considerable periods out injured and of course, Gallagher was recalled, which was a real killer.
To me, on the face of it, the recent window has been fairly similar to the last one, although you could argue that in 2019, we had lost some pretty good players from the squad....like Dijksteel and Aribo.
To be honest, I think we've had a miles better window than that one. Cullen and Gallagher obviously walk into this team but I'm not sure the rest would get in. As you say, losing Aribo and Dijksteel was also a massive loss that season whereas the only real loss this time round was Small which I think we've replaced very well
Sam Field and Tom Lockyer looked good to me and I think Field getting injured proved to be fairly crucial.
Matthews, Kayal and Hemed were proven at a higher level and looked good signings at the time. The two Brighton players didn't work out but Matthews didn't have a bad season.
We'd also lost Patrick Bauer to Preston...I'd forgotten that and I also hadn't noticed that he's signed for Wimbledon.
Full marks to the Board who have backed Jones and provided funds for purchases. As for the players brought in...early days although Bell is already showing knowhow and composure at this level. Ask the question again at Christmas.
Cant say the board haven't backed NJ, something like 8th highest spenders in a division where teams regularly pay 10m+ for a single player is proof of that.
Personally would have liked a CM to cover Coventry, the thought of Anderson starting regularly at this level isn't great.
Some of the new signings need to bed in and settle but the owners have given us a very decent platform to attempt to stay up, which is all we could have hoped for really.
I think we should've invested more into central midfield. I know NJ wanted Gailbraith, but it feels like there was no Plan B for another midfielder. Unless Costello comes in and shines, or Doch and Coventry really step up, we may have dropped a clanger there. The balance isn't quite right: we've not got enough strength, guile or someone to knit it together.
Everywhere else I'm pretty happy. I thought we'd drop a few mil this season, but didn't expect us to spend around £10 million. Credit to the owners for backing Jones. On paper, we've strengthened depth and competition in most areas, which hasn't been the case for years. But I do expect our midfield weakness to become more apparent as the season goes on.
Comments
As a Championship side it was more like 5/10
We didn't upgrade our midfield, we didn't really upgrade our defence significantly (not that it needed it tbf) and all of our attacking talent haven't started too brightly.
Need more time to know for sure, but I was hoping to see Kelman & Knibbs play together a lot more and try to build the same understanding that Knibbs/Smith had as I think that potential is there.
I think Tanto hasn't offered much from his limited chances, looked better in pre-season.
Apter and Carey seem the best fits so far with their workrates and how well they've adjusted to the squad.
We will see in time but as far as a Championship transfer window goes, it's very average or even below average, we are just so accustomed to severe neglect the fees spent have surprised people, when they're actually small fees in the grand scheme of the league.
Slightly concerned we haven't done enough now personally, and we are completely relying on players making the step up instead of signing proven quality, but I don't think we had the financial pull to sign proven quality Championship forwards and midfielders, so our best options were doing what we did, or finding gems abroad.
Time will tell.
This is, hopefully, the first of many years of continuous progression where we will see quality injected every summer (maybe in the January windows too - Fukuda could well be a January arrival in the next window). The strategy has clearly been to invest in younger, high-performers from league one supplemented by experienced Championship players. That makes sense given the huge sums being thrown around now. We need to build steadily and sustainably. I think it's absolutely crazy the way that some fans have already made up their minds that many of the signings are duds - after so few games. Let's get them all properly match fit, more accustomed to each other, finding the right formations and partnerships, and then we'll see what's what. Personally, I am confident that the large majority of our signings will do well. Have a bit of patience and confidence in Nathan Jones/Phil Chapple - they know what they're doing.
As for Fofana, I really don't know him or how close we were to landing him. What I do know is that we've got a lot of attacking options now so it's not like previous windows where a missed target has a hugely detrimental impact on the team.
All the signings make sense in that they look to build on what we had and fit into our line up and style of play.
Question marks about what were mainly league one stars ability to step up remain. Kam, Tanto, Kelman and even Knibbs not shown much yet IMHO and last seasons players are not having it all their own way.
We only lost one real first teamer in Small, when many fretted unnecessarily about Ramsay, Jones or others being sold, but we have brought in Apter and Bree in his position.
We know that Jones teams take time to gel but then get stronger but our spend, while big for us, is small (pun intended) compared to just about everyone else in the division bar basket case Sheffield Wednesday.
Unless you have silly money like Brum and Disney FC I don't think we can expect much more but while the defence has generally looked strong goals seem hard to find so far.
My pre-season prediction of 15th still feels about right.
It was a good window but this is a sting in the tail.
In that one I think we brought in;
Conor Gallagher
Beram Kayal
Tomer Hemed
Adam Matthews
Deji Oshilaja
Sam Field
Tom Lockyer
Chuks Aneke
Jonathan Leko
Macauley Bonne
Erhum Oztumer
Josh Cullen - returning on loan
As ever, the current season will hinge largely on key players staying injury free. In our previous two Championship seasons, key players like Vetokele, Diarra, Kashi, Bauer, Williams, Field and Taylor spent considerable periods out injured and of course, Gallagher was recalled, which was a real killer.
To me, on the face of it, the recent window has been fairly similar to the last one, although you could argue that in 2019, we had lost some pretty good players from the squad....like Dijksteel and Aribo.
I've thought all along we will finish about 18th, seems about right. We are going to have more weeeks like the one we have just had and the fans really need to stick it out this season, having consecutive seasons in the championship for the first time in a decade is not to be sniffed at.
Good mix of experience and the young players that will get better.
We now have a squad with decent strength throughout.
9/10
10/10 if we stay up.
The players and the team will need time to bed in, although this is an unforgiving division. The one area of concern for me is a lack of creativity in midfield, although finding such a player at an affordable cost is easier said than done.
Pursuing a policy of incremental improvement makes complete sense and it’s easy to forget that, just over 18 months ago, we had gone 18 games without a win and were looking anxiously over our shoulders at the trapdoor to League 2.
A big positive is how we kept hold of our own premium players, which shows one of two things;
1) The players aren't that well sought after elsewhere.
2) The players want to remain at the club and see the project through.
Of course I hope it's the later.
A window above what I would have expected after such a long period of disappointment and despair.
The owners are doing enough.
Can Jones, the season will show!
9/10
Only minor quibbles are needing cover for Coventry, if Bell is enough cover for Edwards, and all of our strikers (apart from an unfortunately aging Godden) being untried at this level
Current verdict 7/10.
Ask me again at xmas
Keeping Kayne Ramsay was one of the most important parts of the window and can't believe there wasn't more interest for him. Jones and Coventry both staying is also a bonus.
Think we'll be alright this season. Will be very tough and there'll be a fair few bad losses in there but I think there's at least 5 or 6 teams who are worse or on par with us
The striker signings have yet to make their mark, not helped by Nathan's seeming indecision around his first choices
Bree is a strange one, is he anywhere near match fit ?
Knibbs, Rankin (dread) Costello
All in all .. I'll give it 6.5/10 (so far) .. hoping for a 9 by Christmas !
The issue is the Championship is utterly bonkers with multiple clubs spending way beyond their means and it ends up skewing the optics on our business. Wrexham need to get promoted in the next 2 seasons or they're in the PSR shit, irrespective of their commercial revenue.
With the only addition that the Fofana lad is Charlton Life's new Andy Delort.
Personally I wouldn't have bought Kelman, who cost 1/3 of our transfer business, as I'd have rather put the money towards a really good central midfielder, rather than a squad payer like Rankin-Costello. And I'm not convinced our style of football will create many chances for Kelman.
Up front, I would have gone for someone more established in the Championship, for example Ryan Hardie if we could compete with Wrexham on the wages as his release clause was only £700k. Or an experienced target man striker like Michael Smith, if we could persuade him to move south again, or similar. For a team like us, that physical option would have been useful, and in the absence of Godden we do lack Championship experience up front. We have a lot of "potential" up front, but there's nothing wrong with a short term solution as well.
I know NJ doesn't like loans, but I do wonder if we've unnecessarily cut ourselves off from the loan market this summer due to this.
Matthews, Kayal and Hemed were proven at a higher level and looked good signings at the time. The two Brighton players didn't work out but Matthews didn't have a bad season.
We'd also lost Patrick Bauer to Preston...I'd forgotten that and I also hadn't noticed that he's signed for Wimbledon.
Personally would have liked a CM to cover Coventry, the thought of Anderson starting regularly at this level isn't great.
Some of the new signings need to bed in and settle but the owners have given us a very decent platform to attempt to stay up, which is all we could have hoped for really.
Everywhere else I'm pretty happy. I thought we'd drop a few mil this season, but didn't expect us to spend around £10 million. Credit to the owners for backing Jones. On paper, we've strengthened depth and competition in most areas, which hasn't been the case for years. But I do expect our midfield weakness to become more apparent as the season goes on.
Sorry that's the course i am on today!
Window been great, gonna give us half a chance of survival.