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

[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.

[Heisenberg 1,824]

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.

That is your vision, personally, I think the club is smartly run, Abramovic is a very intelligeant man, he has money, but he use it preciously, does not throw it in stupid deals, that's why we are double European Champions and not Manchester City for example.Yes we have a lot of money and we could buy Ibra and Cavani if the big boss wanted that, but I prefer to not cheat, and use wisely the money I will spend, we learned from Nando's deal and Abramovich learned a lot since José's sacking.

[NishC300 1,865]

Summary

Jose > Rafa

Eto'o > Torres

Willian > Moses

Schurrle > Malouda

De Bruyne > Benayoun

Van Ginkel > Raul Meireles shaped hole

Essien > Fereirra

Schwarzer > Turnbull

Went for Osgood because of this. Brilliant post.

You can't improve a lot more than we did. It's a transfer market, not a shopping mall where you can buy whatever you please.

Everything is much better than before and we did it all at a good price.

[The Skipper 20,593]

Pretty good. Yeah, we didn't really fill in the world class striker and world class CM void but we did try on the former, and on the latter I believe the club are still waiting for the right option to come about. When signing these players they have to be the right one.

Our squad has been improved by a ten fold. We will have no problems rotational-wise now, and we have a manager that can make us challenge for the title.

We're on the right path, and hopefully next season we'll be able to add more pieces (the right ones) to make this squad even better.

[bushman 2,043]

That is your vision, personally, I think the club is smartly run, Abramovic is a very intelligeant man, he has money, but he use it preciously, does not throw it in stupid deals, that's why we are double European Champions and not Manchester City for example.Yes we have a lot of money and we could buy Ibra and Cavani if the big boss wanted that, but I prefer to not cheat, and use wisely the money I will spend, we learned from Nando's deal and Abramovich learned a lot since José's sacking.

Well, I also do not want to see Roman throwing money around aimlessly. However, if you add all those mentioned players up, you will see Chelsea could have had Cavani.

This guy Willian why was he bought ? Atsu ? I know, some might say, buy cheap sell for profit.

I just feel, Chelsea could have done better, that´s all.

[The Skipper 20,593]

Ba, Torres and Etoo let that slowly sink in

Off topic but it isn't anywhere near as bad as you're trying to make it out to be. It's still a pretty solid strike force. You're just bitter because we've sent Lukaku out on loan so everything just seems negative to you. Lukaku is better than Torres and Ba yes, but the development time he'll get at Everton is a lot better than the one he got here, he knows that himself. I'm glad he doesn't have the same mentality on this issue as you do.

City: Negredo, Jovetic, Aguero, Dzeko

United: Rooney, RVP, Hernandez, Welbeck

Chelsea: Eto'o, Torres, Ba

Arsenal: Giroud, Sanogo, Bendtner ()

Tottenham: Soldado, Adebayor, Defoe

Liverpool: Sturridge, Suarez, Aspas

When compared to the other teams in the PL, we aren't the best, but we aren't the worse either. You have to think long term about it though (as I'm sure Mourinho is doing), Lukaku will come back to us next season a better striker, we'll probably try to offload Ba and/or Torres next season, Eto'o's contract is up... We have to make due with what we've got at the moment but next season we'll be able to concentrate on reshaping our strike force.

[Heisenberg 1,824]

Well, I also do not want to see Roman throwing money around aimlessly. However, if you add all those mentioned players up, you will see Chelsea could have had Cavani.

This guy Willian why was he bought ? Atsu ? I know, some might say, buy cheap sell for profit.

I just feel, Chelsea could have done better, that´s all.

64M€ is crazy money for one single player, plus the salary.Willian & Eto'o is a better deal.

Willian was bought as a part of the Eto'o deal first, and secondly because Moses isnt technically in the same level as our offensive midfielders.So we replace Moses with a better player, and we loan Moses to become a better player, win win.That's what Abramovich money brings, possibilities, not Cavani and Falcao.I dont think we could have done better because you must not forget we went for Rooney first, if Rooney came and Eto'o + Willian would not, it still would be a good summer.