Which Premier League club ‘won’ the transfer window? – The debate

The Athletics has launched a series of sports debates in which two writers analyse a specific topic. In this edition, Nick Miller and Tim Spiers discuss which Premier League club ‘won’ the summer transfer window.

The summer transfer window is over for another year. There haven’t been many blockbuster deals, a few clubs have been pretty quiet and there have been a few transfers that just look good/make sense on the balance sheet.

But who will be happy with their work now that they actually have to play football? We asked Nick Miller and Tim Spiers to debate who did the best job on the market this summer…

Nick: Hello, Tim. The transfer window is over. The tabloids have fallen silent. David Ornstein can get some sleep. The only thing left is to debate which Premier League team ‘won’ the transfer window…

Tim: Ornstein has been temporarily cryogenically frozen, I hear? The thawing process will automatically begin when he hears a sonic murmur from the first manager to be fired this season. But yeah, there’s absolutely no satisfaction in just letting the window pass and moving on with our lives. We need to decide who won. Right now.

Nick: I think we need to talk about what winning means. Is it just signing a bunch of good players? Is it firing a bunch of players? Is it being terribly smart about write-offs and other things that people pretend aren’t weird?

Tim: We can rule out what it isn’t, which is that it isn’t just about spending a lot of money (Chelsea), or signing the highest number of players (Chelsea), or selling your academy graduates for the biggest profit (Chelsea), or simply throwing obscene amounts of money and players into your crazy idea machine, giving them all 10-year contracts and hoping that some guy with no experience as a top-flight manager can pull it all off (*checks notes* yes, Chelsea).

Simply put, if you want to win the transfer window, you need to have undeniably improved your squad/team as part of a clear, coherent strategy for the year ahead.

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Nick: So we’re ruling out Chelsea?

Some possible candidates for their place: Fulham have bolstered their squad considerably, despite not making an outright replacement for Joao Palhinha, Ipswich Town have pulled off a bit of a Nottingham Forest move by signing 12 players (although most of them are ‘a bit too good for the Championship, maybe not good enough for the Premier League’), while Forest themselves have been fairly cagey by their standards with just nine first-team players. Anyone else?

Tim: Agreed about Fulham, they had a great summer, capped off by signing Reiss Nelson on deadline day. I can see them ‘doing things’ as they say this season.

West Ham United are definitely worth a mention; Maximilian Kilman and Aaron Wan-Bissaka are strong defensive additions and Niclas Fullkrug and Crysencio Summerville almost make me excited to see West Ham play football. Almost.

Tottenham Hotspur’s success or failure hinges on the biggest deal of the entire transfer window, spending £65 million ($85 million) on a striker who needed 96 games to score 10 Premier League goals. Yes, it feels risky, but if Dominic Solanke can reproduce last season’s form, he’ll have done a fine job.

Spurs have spent big on Solanke (Visionhaus/Getty Images)

Nick: I’m telling you, Tim, Brighton had the best transfer window. They finally made a splash after years of quiet cleverness in the market, spending huge chunks of the huge piles of cash they had sitting around selling your Moises Caceidos, your Alexis MacAllisters and your Marc Cucurellas.

They have spent almost £200m and have essentially rebuilt their squad for their new manager, the disgustingly young Fabian Hurzeler (31). Tell me I’m wrong.

Tim: I’m not sure I can tell you for sure that you’re wrong, but I don’t think I can confidently tell you that you’re right, Nick. I’m really sorry.

Brighton seem to know what they are doing. I like that they have only signed players aged 18-24, but are we just saying that they have had a great transfer window because in the past they have bought guys that nobody has heard of and who have turned out to be incredibly good?

It reminds me of when critics trashed Oasis’ second album (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? It turned out to be one of the most popular albums of all time. They gave their third album, Be Here Now, great reviews to get in on the trend, but in reality it was worse than hearing you sing in the shower.

Oh god, does this mean Tony Bloom is going to sell out and charge £350 for tickets at Amex? No, probably not. Anyway, Nick, tell me what you actually know about Brighton’s new players and I might be convinced.

GALLING DEEPER

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Nick: If the measure of a new signing is how angry the other team’s fans are at losing them, then Georginio Rutter is a no-doubt. Leeds fans were crying and clutching him like a snotty child refusing to let go of its mother on the first day of school.

Then there’s Yankuba Minteh, signed from Newcastle in urgent need of PSR (profit and sustainability rules) cash, and already looking incredibly lively. Throw in Ferdi Kadioglu, who can play on either flank as a full-back or a winger, plus the obligatory kid no one’s heard of but who’s set to join Chelsea for nine trophy cases in 18 months’ time (Mali’s 18-year-old midfielder Malick Yalcouye, in this case), and you’ve got an impressive summer of work ahead of him.

(Glyn Kirk/AFP via Getty Images)

Tim: It’s probably impressive, but we won’t know until Brighton prove it on the pitch… (*checks league table*) Okay, third place, not bad.

But I will respond with a club that has demonstrably made good additions, and given yesterday’s results, you will have to agree.

The club in question has signed five players, brought in one of the most highly rated young defenders in European football (Leny Yoro), solved a problem position by signing a very good defensive midfielder (Manuel Ugarte), signed one of the best defenders in the world this decade (Matthijs de Ligt) and added serious quality at full-back (Noussair Mazraoui) and in attack (Joshua Zirkzee). That club is Manchester United and I think they won the transfer window. Don’t @ me Nick.

Nick: If The Athletics The top brass expected us to fight it out here, but they’re going to be disappointed: I agree that United have had a very good summer, if only because it’s a little worrying to see them behaving in anything approaching competence…

Tim:INEOS policymakers are doing their best to repair the serious damage done over the past decade.

They’ve also made what appear to be some very smart additions behind the scenes in senior positions, plus they’ve managed to offload some expensive, unwanted players in Jadon Sancho, Mason Greenwood and Donny van de Beek, plus Wan-Bissaka and poor Scott McTominay, to balance the books. Whether Erik ten Hag can actually do anything decent with his vastly improved squad is another matter. But on paper, United did well.

People might look at Sunday’s 3-0 thrashing by Liverpool and say this is folly, but I’m not sure you can argue that Ugarte looks anything more than a very necessary addition. Considering Casemiro’s rather dreadful performance, Ugarte had a great day.

The big question at United is whether they have a head coach who can turn these excellent signings into a cohesive football team. I would argue that there is two years of evidence (and counting) that he cannot. And therein lies United’s dilemma. We have seen them sign countless players who look great, before or after (or both) they are at the club… but for whatever reason they have struggled at Old Trafford.

Is Ten Hag the man to make the most of a good summer business? (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

I’m talking about Van de Beek, Sancho, Anthony Elanga, you could even go back to Paul Pogba, Angel Di Maria, Alexis Sanchez… all players whose best football of their careers has been played elsewhere.

That is a deep-rooted cultural problem and one that INEOS is trying to change. It will not be easy.

Nick: Since being mean to people is generally a lot more fun than being nice, what about teams that ruined things this summer?

GALLING DEEPER

Inside Newcastle’s ’embarrassing’ transfer window: frustration, pain and flirting with ‘carnage’

I give you Newcastle, who tiptoed around Marc Guehi for months, signed a striker in William Osula who has two career league goals (all in League One) and are already on loan with Odysseas Vlachodimos a few weeks after his PSR-tastic arrival from Forest. They also waited until the last minute to try and sign a winger when they’d apparently known the right side was a problem for ages, and eventually panicked before making a failed attempt to sign Anthony Elanga. And then there’s Liverpool, who bought a wide forward when they already have plenty and a big hole in their midfield. And Chelsea because… well, guys: it’s Chelsea.

Tim:I prayed James McNicholas would mention him when he announced on deadline day that Arsenal might have wrapped up their business and was greeted by a cacophony of angry melodramatic Arsenal fans (really) saying it had been the worst transfer window ever and that their squad had actually gotten worse.

I’m not sure if the addition of Raheem Sterling, who was discarded by Chelsea and England, will necessarily change the mood there. But yes, the correct answer is Newcastle.

Nick: Good. I think we handled that pretty well. Good work everyone.

Tim: Well done, Nick.

(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Dan Goldfarb)