Rating the 2013 Summer Window: How was it for you darling?

[The_Flash 1,144]

slow to start then quickly over

anticlimatic :eyebrows:

[Heisenberg 1,824]

Didier all the way.

Every thing was perfect, José back, the club is moving forward, wish we signed De Rossi

[zolayes 14,489]

Summary

Jose > Rafa

Eto'o > Torres

Willian > Moses

Schurrle > Malouda

De Bruyne > Benayoun

Van Ginkel > Raul Meireles shaped hole

Essien > Fereirra

Schwarzer > Turnbull

TRUE cept we STILL HAVE TORRES

[zolayes 14,489]

close to a Drogba I think ,,,for an Osgood we would have needed Messi...Can't have everything at once ... Perhaps Father Xmas will

bring him for us in December

[Jase 43,479]

Quality 'responses' in the poll!

Would go with Gudjohnsen. The obvious positive thing we did was to strengthen our squad depth in the attacking areas. We have gone from having Marin, Benayoun and Moses as backups to probably Schurrle, Willian and De Bruyne. Can't be too angry about that even though I still question the signing of Willian. However, it's rather frustrating that once again we did not bolster and get more quality in for arguably our two weakest areas - strikers and defensive midfielder. I wonder how long more will we be complaining about those two failures till we actually sign someone capable..

[TorontoChelsea 4,064]

Poor. We spent 60M pounds and had fairly mild upgrades. There's a point when adding players, even quality players has very little benefit. (Law of diminishing return). I have no doubt that we are a better team now than when the transfer window opened, but not that much better and for the amount we've spent, we should have improved enormously.

If we play 60 games this year that means a total of 180 starts for our attacking midfield. Last year, Mata, Hazard, and Oscar combined for 150 starts. (With Ramires and Moses taking almost all the rest). We needed to add depth there and getting De Bruyne back was perfect for that. It made Moses our fifth attacking midfielder and gave us 4 solid players to rotate. Without Willian or Schurrle, we could have gone something like Oscar, Mata, Hazard, with 45 starts De Bruyne 35 starts and Moses with 10 starts. Perfectly fine. Without just Willian, that breakdown becomes let's say Oscar, Mata, and Hazard, 45 starts each , De Bruyne and Schurrle 20 starts each, and Moses 5 starts. That's already great depth, less playing time for our top players and fewer starts for De Bruyne and Schurrle than they should be getting. And then we added Willian which now means that any time one player gets will just be taken away from another quality players' time.

Similarly, for Eto'o. Does he improve us over Lukaku? Probably, but it's a marginal improvement again (although this time, the cost is low).

Going into the season, I would have rated our primary team needs as follows.

1) Elite striker (not in goals per se, but overall link-up, efficiency, goals, etc,,,)

2) Excellent central midfielder

We didn't get either of those. Of course, even a marginal improvement can help an expensive and talented team get a few extra points and win the league (which is possible for us), but I don't think we spent the money particularly efficiently.

[Heisenberg 1,824]

Well, when I used to go to school, we learned math.

If I were to add it all up, the following is true.

Willian for 32m Oto´o will cost Chelsea 7m. Meanwhile, Cavani went for 40m.

How about Cavani bought instead of these two, Lukaku kept on & the club would have been better off ?

Cavani costed 64M€.

Eto'o costed zero Euro.7M€ is his salary, if you count Eto'o as 0+Salary, then do it also for Cavani.Not good at Math you seem to be.

[bushman 2,043]

Cavani costed 64M€.

Eto'o costed zero Euro.7M€ is his salary, if you count Eto'o as 0+Salary, then do it also for Cavani.Not good at Math you seem to be.

Salary are paid for players as we all know it. Chelsea spent 60m or so. Had they not bought Willian...? Plenty of money left to buy Cavani with a few millions added. I am sure the club should have done it.

[The only place to be 11,313]

Good in terms of squad depth, on the proviso that we already have a good team. We lost points las season against 'weaker' teams where you'd expect us to shuffle the deck, except we didn't have the players to do so. Hopefully now we do.

It also depends on how good Eto'o actually is right now. Right now it seems like a pretty decent window but the are still a lot of questions which need answering. We haven't reinvented the wheel, but we may have acquired a few extra set of tyres.

[BlueSunshine 672]

Poor. We spent 60M pounds and had fairly mild upgrades. There's a point when adding players, even quality players has very little benefit. (Law of diminishing return). I have no doubt that we are a better team now than when the transfer window opened, but not that much better and for the amount we've spent, we should have improved enormously.

If we play 60 games this year that means a total of 180 starts for our attacking midfield. Last year, Mata, Hazard, and Oscar combined for 150 starts. (With Ramires and Moses taking almost all the rest). We needed to add depth there and getting De Bruyne back was perfect for that. It made Moses our fifth attacking midfielder and gave us 4 solid players to rotate. Without Willian or Schurrle, we could have gone something like Oscar, Mata, Hazard, with 45 starts De Bruyne 35 starts and Moses with 10 starts. Perfectly fine. Without just Willian, that breakdown becomes let's say Oscar, Mata, and Hazard, 45 starts each , De Bruyne and Schurrle 20 starts each, and Moses 5 starts. That's already great depth, less playing time for our top players and fewer starts for De Bruyne and Schurrle than they should be getting. And then we added Willian which now means that any time one player gets will just be taken away from another quality players' time.

Similarly, for Eto'o. Does he improve us over Lukaku? Probably, but it's a marginal improvement again (although this time, the cost is low).

Going into the season, I would have rated our primary team needs as follows.

1) Elite striker (not in goals per se, but overall link-up, efficiency, goals, etc,,,)

2) Excellent central midfielder

We didn't get either of those. Of course, even a marginal improvement can help an expensive and talented team get a few extra points and win the league (which is possible for us), but I don't think we spent the money particularly efficiently.

I agree with you, though poor is a bit harsh imo i would say mediocre. Not counting Jose as a transfer i would say that i expected much more especially for the money that we spent. If we had bought a midfielder like Witsel or Kondogbia or De Rossi instead of Schurrle (and kept Moses for rotation) i would have been happy. If we had also bought a top striker i would have been thrilled.

[bushman 2,043]

Somehow, I get the feeling the bought tires were used.

[TorontoChelsea 4,064]

I agree with you, though poor is a bit harsh imo i would say mediocre. Not counting Jose as a transfer i would say that i expected much more especially for the money that we spent. If we had bought a midfielder like Witsel or Kondogbia or De Rossi instead of Schurrle (and kept Moses for rotation) i would have been happy. If we had also bought a top striker i would have been thrilled.

The overall result was not poor, you're right. We definitely improved, but poor considering the amount of money we spent.

[Heisenberg 1,824]

Salary are paid for players as we all know it. Chelsea spent 60m or so. Had they not bought Willian...? Plenty of money left to buy Cavani with a few millions added. I am sure the club should have done it.

Few ? Lets say you have 38M€, to go and get Cavani you'll have to add 26 M€ just to pay Napoli, and then, you have to pay the player between 8-10 M€ per year for five years, its a Torres-esque type of deals and we now avoid them.Willian is expensive, but wont cost much in terms of salary which is as important as the transfer fee.

[bushman 2,043]

Few ? Lets say you have 38M€, to go and get Cavani you'll have to add 26 M€ just to pay Napoli, and then, you have to pay the player between 8-10 M€ per year for five years, its a Torres-esque type of deals and we know avoid them.Willian is expensive, but wont cost much in terms of salary which is as important as the transfer fee.

Since we all know money is no object at Chelsea. Several millions saved on other players, Eto´o, Astu, Willian not bought, BA sold, Mikel sold = Cavani, much better business.

[kellzfresh 7,229]

Good in terms of squad depth, on the proviso that we already have a good team. We lost points las season against 'weaker' teams where you'd expect us to shuffle the deck, except we didn't have the players to do so. Hopefully now we do.

It also depends on how good Eto'o actually is right now. Right now it seems like a pretty decent window but the are still a lot of questions which need answering. We haven't reinvented the wheel, but we may have acquired a few extra set of tyres.

Brilliant.