January Failings
Recruitment has been a massive talking point since Aitor left the club. Really since January when the cracks began to accelerate in growth, ignoring price tags and looking at actual value added to the team and what has been contributed.
Boro
Rudy Gestede Aston Villa £6m; 11 apps, 9 chances created, no assists, 1 goal (v Man Utd)
Patrick Bamford Chelsea £6m; 5 apps, no chances created, no goals
Adlène Guedioura Watford £4m; 5 apps, 1 chance created, no assists, no goals
Mikael Soisalo Tampere £170,000; N/A youth player
One goal contributed from January signings and no positive impact on points total adding very little value. Would be hard to argue an improvement from letting go of Nugent and Rhodes has been made.
Swansea
Tom Carroll Tottenham Hotspur £5m; 12 apps, 11 chances created, 2 assists (3-2 Liverpool Win and 3-2 Burnley Win), no goals
Luciano Narsingh PSV Eindhoven £4m; 11 apps, 6 chances created, 2 assists (Southampton 2-1 win and 2-1 loss to Man City), no goals
Martin Olsson Norwich City £4m; 11 apps, 6 chances created, 2 goals (Leicester in 2-0 Win and Burnley in 3-2 Win)
Jordan Ayew Aston Villa £5m plus Neil Taylor; 9 apps, 1 chance created, 1 assist (Loss to Spurs), no goals
Completely different story with 12 points been directly influenced by transfer window signings. Swansea spent £18m v Boro £16m. It’s clear who got more bang for the buck.
Hull
Kamil Grosicki Rennes £7m; 10 apps, 15 chances created, 3 assists (2 assists v West Ham in 2-1 win and 1 assist v Boro in 4-2 win), no goals
Markus Henriksen AZ Alkmaar £4.5m; 14 apps, 2 chances created, no assists and no goals
Evandro Porto £1.1m; 7 apps, 10 chances created, no assists and no goals
Oumar Niasse Everton loan; 12 apps, 5 chances created, no assists, no goals
Omar Elabdellaoui Olympiakos loan; 7 apps, 2 chances created, no assists, no goals
Lazar Markovic Liverpool loan; 9 Apps, 5 chances created, no assists, 1 goal scored (4-2 win v Boro)
Andrea Ranocchia Internazionale loan; 11 apps, 2 chances created, 2 assists (2-0 win v Liverpool and 3-1 loss v Stoke), 2 goals scored (2-1 win West Ham and 3-1 loss Man City)
Alfred N’Diaye Villarreal loan 10 apps, 3 chances created, no assists and 1 goal scored (2-0 win v Liverpool)
Again a much more positive outlook for Hull from January business with 9 points won directly from involvement of new signings. Total spend £12.1m.
Burnley
Robbie Brady Norwich City £13m; 10 apps, 8 chances created, 1 assist (1-1 Draw v Hull), 1 goal scored (1-1 Draw v Chelsea)
Ashley Westwood Aston Villa £5m; 5 apps, 2 chances created, no assist, no goals
Joey Barton unattached; 13 apps, 8 chances created, no assist, 1 goal (1-0 win v Southampton)
Even Burnley who doesn’t like spending money had a very valuable transfer window with 5 points contributed to their cause.
Crystal Palace
Luka Milivojevic Olympiakos £11m; 7 apps, 4 chances created, no assists, 1 goal (3-0 win v Arsenal)
Patrick van Aanholt Sunderland £10.2m; 5 apps, 3 chances created, no assists, 1 goal (1-0 win v Boro)
Jeffrey Schlupp Leicester City £9m; 10 apps, no assists, no goals
Mamadou Sakho Liverpool loan; 6 apps, 3 chances created, no assists, no goals
Doesn’t paint clear picture as Palace have been a different team under Big Sam but even that said the new signings contributed to 6 points. They were by far the biggest spenders but can you put a tag on survival.
Bournemouth
Aaron Ramsdale Sheffield United £1m, N/A youth player
At time probably thought they had enough but a couple of injuries and they are now in free fall.
- Is Britt Assombalonga’s time at Middlesbrough coming to an end?
- Lewis Wing’s future at Middlesbrough uncertain
As you can see from a limited sample of stats, it is fairly clear one of the issues causing pain in Teesside at the moment stems from lack of quality, team changing signings. Little to know value was added in the window and it seems we are going to suffer for it.