Tbh, there are plenty of players who settle in immediately, because of their superior technical ability - if anything, I'd say most high-caliber players are of the Michu/Mata/Cazorla/Silva/Vertonghen instant-impact kind, and the ones that take a while to cope with the pace/physicality of this league are relatively rare, or from the slow-paced South American leagues. Strikers sometimes take a while to come alive too.
I didn't consider this a "bedding down" transition season for us, actually. If we had bought a bunch of young unproven "potential" then yeah, it would take a while to see what worked and what didn't. I considered this more of a "holy crap we've just clawed out our own guts what the fudge are we going to do now" desperate scrabble sort of season where we'd have to bruteforce our way to every point through sheer willpower, because I certainly couldn't see us doing it the pretty way anymore. I was unhappy with both our summer and Jan transfer windows (not because of what we bought, but because of what we lost and *didn't* buy) and thought we'd finish seventh at best, esp after Liverpool landed both Sturridge and Coutinho.
So in that sense, I'm very happy to see how much we've squeezed our of squad. :lol: It needs a lot of work imo, but AVB will have had a much better sense of both our players and Levy. I think Bale will stay, and that alone would make this a better summer than last year's. Mentally it is so hard to start a season feeling like you've lost your best teammates.
Biggest development would be the stadium for me! [-o<
