We signed a plethora of players in the summer transfer window, 11 in total, in a wide range of positions. How have those individuals gotten on in the early stages of their time here and how might our window have provided a base for us to progress in the next season and beyond? It would be fair to say that overall, our signings haven't had much of an impact so far, with a few exceptions and whilst that may be a source of frustration looking at how it will align with what we are most likely going to attempt to do going forward provides a more optimistic look into how effective our business was.
Starting off with our first signing of the window, we have Jobe Belllingham. The Player who has featured the most out of the 11 we brought in. He's usually in the starting XI and if he doesn't play the whole 90 minutes he's usually present into the latter stages of the game. Bellingham is clearly a player with a very high ceiling and towards the beginning of the season he was able to showcase this throughout a whole game but as his minutes have added up his ability to perform has lessened noticeably. Despite this, it's still probably fair to say flashes of his current ability and what he may be able to do in the future still do occur. The main problem with Jobe wasn't us signing him but our continued usage of him in spite of the obvious fact he's still a teenager who sometimes will need either a rest or a game off the bench to allow him to impact games more effectively. Our problems with identifying a regular starter in the centre-forward role has meant he has often been deployed there himself, he's much better in an attacking midfield role rather than going up front so this does his development a disservice. That's not to say he's been particularly bad in this role, but we have better options to lead our frontline. A lack of a natural deep-lying defensive midfielder puts more pressure on Bellingham as well which highlights some of his weaknesses as a footballer. Five goals and one assist is hardly a bad return though, he's second in our top scorer charts after all and therefore he can be categorised as a good signing with his weaknesses being exemplified by our team selection and our shortfalls in other positions. Similarities can be drawn between him and Callum Doyle, who started off with consistent high-level performances in League One but was simply rundown over time affecting his level of ability. Since leaving us Doyle has been a much better player capable of playing well in the Championship. Bellingham will rest and recover over summer and come back a much more consistent player over the course of the season, in the meantime though he needs a game or two with limited involvement. A price of just £1.5 million is still quite a bargain. HIT
Nectarios Triantis was the next man through the door, with only three appearances for us he's still someone who can't be judged to have been a successful signing yet but he never played badly when he did feature. The one league game he started in we won, so with him in the side we can't be argued to be particularly poor at the back. He also helped us briefly see out a tricky 1-0 win away to Hull. At Hibernian he's been involved in every game since going there, starting the majority of them, despite giving away a couple of penalties in his first two matches (one of which was a very harsh decision). Triantis is also competing with a DR Congo international and a Manchester United loanee for game time, so his continued involvement (even if sometimes limited) can be taken as a positive. Aged 20 he's got lots of time to bed into our side, especially if Ballard leaves in summer and Luke O'Nien not getting any younger. MAYBE
A shortage of minutes for Luis Semedo also has led to a conclusion that it's still far too early to give him a failed or successful signing label. Just 282 minutes so far, most of which have come in small 10–20-minute cameos is hardly sufficient to give a young player enough time to adapt to the English game especially when he is competing with three or four other players for game time. Strikers in particular need a run of games to start scoring and he just hasn't been given the patience from any of our head coaches this season that he requires. Semedo seems good at dropping back to create space and has come close to finding that elusive goal on a number of occasions so his limited game time has shown a few reasons to be optimistic. With our push for the top six all but over, Semedo needs to be given at least a few starts before the end of the season. MAYBE
Jenson is very close to breaking into being classed as successful. With O'Nien and Ballard being cemented as our first-choice centre-backs, a young player with virtually no experience playing senior football would find it difficult to usurp either of them. Whilst he has so far not done this what he has been able to do is deputise for them if they are absent quite well, a bad performance against Swansea recently doesn't particularly change that. Good performances against Birmingham and Stoke (despite a rather unlucky own goal) highlight this perfectly and he's gotten more comfortable playing in a right wing back role as he was forced to play there more, far from his natural position. Ballard is likely leaving in summer and it isn't too much of a stretch he'll be a solid choice to replace him for next season. MAYBE
Our first real failure of the summer window was the addition of Bradley Dack. Experience was something that many of our fans desperately wanted us to add to our squad so his signing was initially met with relief that not only had we signed someone who'd played regular minutes in the English game but also a player who the manager wanted more so than the sporting director. This showed that we weren't completely unwilling to listen to the head coach when it came to transfer business. At the start of his time here he seemed to be a good signing, playing well in most of his games and scoring against Southampton in August. His injury problems, which in hindsight should have been a greater concern for the recruitment team got the better of him though and he's been sidelined on more than one occasion. Dack's first injury caused quite a big dip in his form that he's never recovered from. He'll most likely be going on a free in summer but he was a free transfer so we've not affected our ability to sign players going forward by bringing him here. MISS
Eliezer Mayenda has featured even less than Semedo has, 187 minutes, and is much the same story. Not being used much but owing to him being even younger this isn't too much of a concern. The real concern lies in the fact he's gone to Hibernian and not managed to get off of the bench much, the Scottish season isn't over yet though so there's some hope that he will be able to. At the age of 18 if he didn't we'd probably just send him out on loan again when the new season started. Whilst he has been here though he's gone close to scoring on a couple of occasions and wasn't exactly a passenger during games so he's shown some of his potential. Definitely one that's too early to make a judgement on. MAYBE
With the departure of Alex Bass on loan to Wimbledon we needed a new backup goalkeeper. Nathan Bishop was the man we signed and he's hardly uprooted anything, failing to challenge Anthony Patterson in any major way. His only game was a rather poor one at home to Crewe. Patterson is making mistakes more frequently though so maybe there's an argument to give him a couple of games with not much at stake for the remainder of the season. Once again he's barely featured, so despite his inability to break into the team, saying he's a complete failure would feel harsh. MAYBE
It's hardly controversial to say that Mason Burstow is a failed signing though. Out of all of our strikers he's the one who's featured the most and has only managed one goal and one assist in his 18 games. For some reason our head coaches have insisted with starting him which has very much robbed the likes of Semedo and Rusyn from game time that they either deserved a chance with or had arguably earned with their performances. Championship seems too high of a level for him at the moment, he is still only 20, so his next destination will be League One with him having a better time of things the last time he played at this level. He has been somewhat a victim of our lack of ability to play a system that suits a striker for whatever reason and in fairness to the recruitment team there was a lot of excitement surrounding him from Chelsea before he arrived. At the end of the day he's a loan signing so the risk is minimal and unfortunately this time around he's not provided much of an award. MISS
Nazariy has been the best of our four strikers with a few less minutes than Burstow. Two goals and one assist so far in 19 games doesn't sound particularly great however we play better with him on the pitch. His runs forward often go ignored by our other players which is annoying but it does give opposition defenders something to think about which aids us going forward. He's versatile, able to also play on either side of the wing and we've been reluctant to play him with another striker alongside him which many have felt would let us use his attributes more effectively. He’s involved in games but before the end of the season he arguably needs to start the vast majority of our remaining 11 games, I’m confident he’ll add another couple of goals to his tally at least. This should allow him to build confidence for next season and if he starts alongside Hemir, then Hemir should get a goal before the end of the campaign. HIT (JUST)
Aouchiche has featured on 19 occasions but like our other signings has been handed starts that are few and far between. Since a poor performance away to Ipswich he’s not had any faith shown in him by either Beale or Dodds and has played just seven minutes. To see he’s a success is impossible but to say he’s a failure would be very harsh. With Bellingham and Ekwah out of form there should be a place in the side for him to show what he can do. When he has played a decent amount he’s done quite well. Getting an assist in his half an hour against QPR on his debut for instance and bagging a goal against Birmingham with his just over 15 minutes. There’s a player there and we need to use him and show faith in him when the other players in the team are out of form. MAYBE
Our final signing of the summer was met with great excitement but arrived injured and has barely played since his recovery. Has Pembele put out the best performances in the world? No he hasn’t, however 85 minutes is nowhere near enough time to judge whether a signing has been successful or not and with the season more or less over (there’s no chance we get playoffs and no great risk we get relegated) perhaps he should be afforded 20-30 minutes in a few of our remaining games. The reason not to start him is because it would involve dropping Trai Hume, even with Hume’s performances dipping in the last two weeks he’s been pretty solid all season and deserves to keep on starting. We invested quite a bit into Pembele (reportedly £4.3 million) and so he should be used. He was able to play some senior football for PSG so to say there’s not a player there would be incorrect in my view. MISS
In conclusion, the vast majority of our signings are very much still in the too early to judge phase and whilst on one hand this reflects badly on Speakman and the model because it shows that he hasn’t signed ready-made replacements for this season, on the other hand our coaches have not given many of them enough time to prove themselves in a new league with different challenges. If we aren’t going to give these signings enough opportunities to prove themselves then most of the signings we make are going to end in failure. We don’t play to the strengths of our strikers which is a big problem and we aren’t willing to drop players who arrived pre-summer (even when they aren’t putting in good enough performances). Burstow and Dack clearly aren’t good enough though so there’s criticism to be had for both of those signings but for most of the others there’s a nice base of young players eager to prove themselves that will aid us going forward if we decide to actually give them more minutes and tweak the system. The actual signings themselves largely aren’t problematic but our coaches dismissal of them and our refusal to change a tactical system that isn’t resulting in enough end product definitely is. If a few months into next season none of these player have still not made an impact then the blame goes back to Speakman and the model but at the moment he, or his way of doing things, aren’t the biggest factor in why we’ve failed to progress up the league this time around.
