Shouting into an empty room - the 22/23 summer transfer window

        Is it really that bad? We've a better 18-man match day squad than we had last season and we only just fell below the dotted line by a few points. I think a lot of fans have been fixated on the idea of this 'marquee striker option' which was never a necessity in our current situation. And for the past two weeks they have essentially been shouting into an empty room, hearing their own complaints reverberate around and ultimately echo back at them; resulting in this frenzied negativity that was always going to be expected come 11pm on September 1st, even if we got players in.

My only disappointment from this window is the lack of right sided centre midfield options, Crooks on his day is a game changer with his effectiveness in the final third, but I always felt he lacked the mobility, agility and discipline to cement that spot as his own. I also didn't believe it was too difficult to upgrade on him, with Panutche Camara heading from Plymouth to Ipswich on Deadline Day for 500k. My top pick was Lewis Fiorini who ended up heading to Blackpool on loan earlier in the window. I felt like we needed someone who shared Tav's workrate on that right hand side, as well as being effective both in possession and out of it. In the end, that wasn't to be; but that is my only disappointment in this window. But I've seen a lot of murmurs and I would like to address them here.

The Squad is Worse than last season

    It quite simply isn't. Steffen, as much as I think we could've/should've gotten a player with similar/better ability for much less wages, is still a big upgrade on Lumley. Roberts was signed after a brilliant season at Northampton where he won player of the season and has not looked out of place in our last two games. Roberts 100% could have a similar career trajectory to Lee Nicholls at Huddersfield who was the stand out goalkeeper in the league last season.

We had zero cover at right wing back last season, now we have cover in Tommy Smith who had been a very good outlet for Stoke in recent seasons. Centreback wise, we have added Darragh Lenihan and Matt Clarke who both add quality, competition and experience at this level; Clarke especially is a coup considering the fee we paid for him and for the fact that we no longer have to see Marc Bola fill in at left centre back on a regular basis. We've addressed the unbalance on the left after bringing in Giles at left wing back, who has already registered a handful of assists this campaign and is looking like the best player in this position in the league. There should be absolutely no complaints about our defence at the end of this window. The defence should now settle once we give them a run of games to get used to each other, in the last two games of this back 5 of Jones-McNair-Lenihan-Clarke-Giles, I would not pin the goals conceded down to defensive errors, but rather costly mistakes in midfield.

I'd be lying if I said I expected us to keep Jonny Howson as our starting holding midfielder this season, however I do hope that we will revert back to the 5-3-2 formation and place Alex Mowatt in that holding role, a role that suits him better than the one he has been playing. Riley McGree has been getting unjust criticism, and similar critiques to what I've seen people say about Marcus Tavernier in recent seasons. But moving him back into the left sided 8 position will address out lack of agility and mobility in midfield, give the lad time and he will be that creative player we've needed. I've seen people complain about how we sold Tav without getting a replacement in, when for me, we already had him. Yes he is not on the same level as Tav, but we were never going to be able to replace him with anyone similar or better. Alex Mowatt for me will do a job as a covering option for both Howson and McGree, if he isn't to start as the 6. Onto our weakest position, the right sided 8, Crooks will start there until January at least. By no means a disaster but he is one who has seemingly been off the pace a bit since the turn of the year, the performance against Swansea looked like one of his best for a while and we saw what he can add to the team then. Unfortunately, we've seen what he lacks a few days later when we went to Vicarage Road; having players like Kayembe run the show is not a welcome sight and it felt like some sort of sickening showboat session every time he played a simple pass, that being said, if you asked me on 85 minutes in that game if a draw would be a fair result; I'd have said yes. It took us gifting possession away from a shot from the halfway line, a classic 10/90 tackle from Paddy McNair and a scuffed shot-come-defence splitting pass to unlock us. On another day, we draw or even win that game. The only senior cover for Crooks in that position is McNair, who is by no means disastrous but I think its a sorry sight to be relying on those two until January at least.

    Finally, the strikers. Probably the most unjust criticism of this window is the complaints in the forward positions. Again, my only criticism is that we haven't played with two up top in the past few games. But there should be zero argument against the fact that Akpom, Forss and Muniz are an upgrade on Balogun, Connolly and Sporar. We've still got Watmore who is effective off the bench and Hoppe who is a USMNT international who is an upgrade on Coburn, having already impressed the coaching staff and registered an end product for our u21s. My hope for the forward postions is that we partner Forss or Akpom with Muniz, and for me, we have a better strike force than 19 or 20 teams in this league.

Ultimately our squad is stronger than it was last season, but we are missing Tavernier and the one area where I can understand if people call it weaker is the midfield.

We didn't get a 'marquee striker' and have been left with 'development options'

    We don't need a marquee striker to challenge for top 6, but rather one would almost guarantee it. I'd much rather be in this position than overpaying for a striker who will ultimately be a risk. We've been strongly linked with Jorgen Strand Larsen this window and were ultimately priced out, most will be disappointed and I can sympathise with that. But for me, I didn't mind that at all, too many times have we panicked and overpaid for player who we ended up stuck with before we've eventually let them go on a free transfer.

 I've seen a lot of criticisms of the Forss and Hoppe signings too, after Wilder sighted them as 'development signings'. This term has been misinterpreted by many as them 'not being good enough yet', in reality they both look like good deals for the club who will both play a part this season as well as grow in ability over the course. Our main critique of our strikers last season was that we couldn't finish, Forss has come in with a reputation from those in Brentford as their best finisher at the club. Having him or Akpom paired with the technical ability of Rodrigo Muniz could and should prove fruitful.

We shouldn't have sold Tavernier or Payero

Another complaint that I can sympathise with and can understand why people are saying it, but I believe the club did the correct thing. We offered Tav a new deal, he made it clear that he wasn't signing; so we either keep him and hope he galvanises the team to promotion, we keep him and we miss out on promotion and sell him for an incredibly cheap deal next summer or we sell him now for the best deal we can get for the club. We've all seen our finances/projections and it quite simply isn't a sustainable way to operate a football club. 

With Payero, he was a risk that never came off. His best games came under Warnock where he was protected by our defensive set up. He looked average in our u23 games and whenever he was called upon in Wilder's team, he never set the world alight. Thats not to say he's a poor player, far from it, but he's not a good fit for this team.

We've not been ambitious enough

    This one I wholeheartedly disagree with, we had no right being in for a player of Thomas Henry's quality but we tried for him. We had offers rejected for Henry, Larsen and Riis, we have also allegedly had enquiries for Piroe, Semenyo and Gyokeres rejected and we were priced out of all six. Lets not misconstrue an unwillingness to overpay as a lack of ambition. As much as he is probably overrated, Steffen is coming in after being second choice at premier league champions Man City. Giles, Lenihan, Muniz, Clarke and Forss are all statements of intent. I remember my eyebrows being raised when we gave Forss the number 21 shirt, I thought he was good enough to start for us and it was almost as if we were manifesting a number 9, 10 and 11. Ultimately we missed out on the latter two, that'll be addressed in January now but Muniz is our number 9 and from the early eye test, he looks a very exciting player. He has the air of the unpredictable about him, effortlessly performing flicks and tricks to both shield the ball and progress play.

Yes we haven't gotten the players we want in in terms of numbers, but for me the signings we have made are incredibly ambitious for the league we are in and are statements of intent.

Our promotion hopes are over

I never thought I'd ever be in the position to point a finger and utter the words 'bed wetter', but here I am. My shirt is firmly tucked into my trousers which are pulled right up over my stomach, I have transformed into a 'Boro dad'. 

It is not ludicrous for me to say that we have been the better team in the majority of our games this season, and we haven't had the rub of the green. Where it be a soft penalty, a goal which shouldn't have happened due to an obvious foul in the build up or quite simply the concentration levels have dropped in a vital moment of the game. If we were to play this round of fixtures again, I would be very surprised if we ended up with the points tally being similar to the one we are currently at. The first half against QPR is the only time that I can say that we were 'dominated' but then we came back in the second half as the much better team. We've gone toe to toe with Sheffield United, WBA and Watford, who will all be in and around the top 6 come the end of the season; and we only lost to Watford after a very unfortunate goal at the death.

Our open play xG is the best in the league according to some sources and we have won that battle in all our games this season , we are on the right track, we just need to shore up our play out of possession. It didn't help that we had a 5ft 9 left wing back playing central defence in the opening 5 games this season. But now that we have a full back 5 that we can hopefully give a run of games to, I expect us to start picking up clean sheets shortly.

Overall, we have a right to feel aggrieved after seeing who we have been linked with during this window and seeing that we have fallen short by 2 or 3 players. However, the season is far from over and we 100% have the quality in this team to challenge.