With the transfer window done and dusted, for now, I thought we should take a look at our current state overall. Let’s start with the transfer window. Incoming were Sylvain Marveaux, Yohan Cabaye, Gabriel Obertan, Davide Santon, Rob Elliot, Mehdi Abeid and Demba Ba. Yohan and Davide are probably the most well known of the lot in the footballing world. Sylvain also has a good rep, and Obertan has on a few occations been touted for greatness. Demba Ba comes with a great scoring record for Hannover and West Ham, Abeid is one for the future, and what a bright future it could be, while Rob came in as cover on the GK position.

Out went Joey Barton, Jose Enrique, Kevin Nolan, Wayne Routledge, Shefki Kuqi and Sol Campbell. The three first have been immense players for us the last two seasons, the last three were only cover, and not much more than benchwarmers at best.

For me, Joey had to go. A lot of clubs have these sorts of troublemakers; they are usually the warriors on and off the pitch, and it’s very important for clubs to have that much needed grit. However, Barton simply took it too far and he was allowed to go on a free, due to what happened on Twitter and maybe other things we know nothing about. He was a great player for us, but only played in 30% of the matches during his 4 years with us, and that simply isn’t enough either. We’ll miss the warrior in Joey and the grit he provided on the pitch, let’s hope we have some of that in Tiote and maybe other players in the future. Jose wanted to leave, he made that clear in the statement he gave after signing for Liverpool. We gave him a good contract offer, but it was not to be; there is only so much you can do. Nolan was our captain, and what a captain he was. For many he was a person to look up to. We offered him a contract as well, but the length on it wasn’t enough for him, and he decided to secure his future with West Ham. The last three players were no loss I thought, as they didn’t contribute enough on the pitch.

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In all of these transfers, I can see a different team emerging, there’s more pace, more intelligence and there should be a lot more ground passes when the team gels. I think there’ll be much more service for our strikers through Cabaye, Ben Arfa and Marveaux than we have seen through the players that left. Ba has a proven track-record, and with time he’ll come good. Best has worked very hard in the matches he’s been in, and it paid off. He still lacks in the finishing department, but will hopefully find some sharpness along with Ba in that area with a few games.

We’re woefully short at CB, relying on players such as Perch and unproven youngsters isn’t something you’d want to do in such an important part of the pitch. Saylor and Collo has been great so far this season, and with Krul getting those super saves, we’ve done good in matches were we could have lost on another day.

Also, as of late, the board has decided to release a much needed statement on why we didn’t get a striker after 7 months of waiting, and they also decided to answer 14 questions posed by the fans through the Evening Chronicle. Neither of these sudden acts of communication were too well received by the fans, and rightly so. However, if we can shed some good light on this, these are acts that I didn’t see the board doing in a million years. Saying yes to answering questions from fans, knowing they’d be hard hitting, critical questions coming your way? That is a good thing, or am I wrong? Also, the board felt obligated to release a statement on the lack of striker signings, could it be that we fans are making ourselves heard to such a degree, that the board sees no other way but try to communicate? However inconclusive the answers were, it is a step in the right direction.

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