It was. We had a great chance to build this summer and botched it. Not only have Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and City improved compared to us (thankfully United are imploding) but our players haven’t had the boost of new players coming in to push them on.
All of these things are very easy to say in isolation. Eg we botched the window, if only we invested a bit more we’d be in a better spot right now etc. But it doesn’t take into account all the factors surrounding the difficulty of the window.
For instance, almost everyone had effectively written Toby off, out of the club. Almost everyone’s assessment of the transfer window a few days before it closed was that we were in desperate need of a CB because Toby was going. And yet, he’s still here, and picking up form again. If we sold him and bought De Ligt, and let’s say sold Dembele and signed Grealish, it would be a very similar window to the summer we signed Wanyama and Toby, or when we signed Sanchez and Aurier. Eg - this summer isn’t exactly that much worse in terms of the actual quality of the squad. With Rose back in form, Toby back in form, Lamela back in form, Winks back in form, Moura actually playing, these are all players we didn’t really have last year. So I don’t know where the obvious space to improve was, given that we didnt sell the obvious players.
It was like people assumed that Toby, Dembele and Rose were already gone, so the window’s success would be contingent on replacing them well. But they’re still here, so what’s the problem? Rose for instance is playing better than he has for 2 years. Why would we be better off replacing those guys now, rather than doing it next summer? And should we accept way lower than fair market value for players we wanted to sell, rather than getting the best out of them?
In the context of many of the windows to come, thinking longer term, this wasn’t a bad one. Not every club can do the massive ‘push’ every summer because they are bound by things like contracts, existing players, budgets, other clubs’ appetite to sell. Liverpool have the luxury of the remaining Coutinho money, and had some space in their squad to fill, so they’ve been able to make a splash. Maybe they will finish above us this one year, maybe not. But next summer it will be our turn to conduct more surgery on the squad, and I’m sure everyone will be happier then. Really though, in the grand scheme of making us get better consistently (which now means competing with Emirates Marketing Project), we need to get on a different financial plane. We need to start reaping the benefits of the stadium. Until that point, we are well set to finish at least 6th and likely at least 4th each year, and no transfer window with a load of signings or otherwise is going to change that. Because until we can more easily compete with City financially, we won’t be up there competing with them consistently, and that is now the next target. Signing players for the sake of it or selling players below a fair market rate just to show that we’ve had some movement or ‘had a good window’ is an entirely pointless exercise.