Who came in, who left and ‘the books’

I started doing this now-regular post-summer-transfer piece back at the beginning of the 2022-23 season and it was for two closely connected reasons.

It was a season where we appeared to be ‘clearing the decks’ more than ever before; both with regards to permanent and loan transfers.  We actually moved out a whopping 35 players in total by September of 2022!

It was quite timely that I began doing this monitoring of both incoming and outgoing players as there appeared to be even more scrutiny than usual about our spending; as questions intensified from all quarters (nosey feckers) regarding our finances.

So, here are this summer’s figures…

In
Name	Position	Cost
Savinho	Winger – Left / Right	£33.6M
Divin Mubama	Striker – Centre	£2M (compensation)
Ilkay Gundogan	Midfielder - Centre	Free

TOTAL SUMMER EXPENDITURE: £35.6M

Out
Name	Position	Cost
Tommy Doyle	Midfielder – Centre	£4.5M
Taylor Harwood-Bellis	Defender – Centre	£20M
Lewis Fiorini	Midfielder – Centre	£350,000
Sergio Gomez	Defender – Left	£8.4M
Liam Delap	Striker – Centre	£20M
Julian Alvarez	Winger / Forward / Striker – Left / Right / Centre	£64.4M (of £81.5M)
Alex Robertson	Midfielder – Centre	Up to £3M
Dario Sarmiento	Midfielder / Winger – Left / Right / Centre	Undisclosed
Ben Knight	Midfielder / Winger / Forward – Right / Centre	Free transfer
Kane Taylor	Defender / Midfielder – Centre	Up to £750,000
Micah Hamilton	Midfielder / Winger – Left / Right / Centre	£3.5M
Joao Cancelo	Defender – Left / Right	£21M
George Murray-Jones	Goalkeeper	Up to £1.1M

This summer, we also received £8.5M as part of a sell-on clause when Douglas Luiz was sold by Aston Villa to Juventus. Similarly, we’ll get up to £2.5M, which was triggered when Aro Muric switched from just-relegated Burnley to newly-promoted Ipswich Town.

TOTAL SUMMER / EVENTUAL INCOME: Around £158M

BALANCE: Around £122.4M profit.

For info…

2023-24 season summer balance: -£58.15M and that’s despite the fact that we added FOUR, ‘big money’ signings to the squad that summer.

2022-23 season summer balance: £58.25M profit.

Huh…City, ruining football and spending beyond their means once again…😂

And purely for your information…

…here’s a list of players who have left on loan in the summer, in no particular order:

-       True Grant – Goalkeeper - Buxton F.C.

-       Yan Couto – Defender – Borussia Dortmund, who are also obliged to buy the player following his season-long loan (rumoured fee of just over £25M next summer).

-       Callum Doyle – Defender – Norwich City.

-       Finley Burns – Defender – Hull City.

-       Kian Breckin – Midfielder – Crewe Alexandra.

-       Luke Mbete – Defender – Northampton Town.

-       Mahamadou Susoho – Midfielder – Peterborough United.

-       Kalvin Phillips – Midfielder – Ipswich Town.

-       Maximo Perrone – Midfielder – Como 1907.

-       Kayky – Winger – Sparta Rotterdam.

-       Joel Ndala – Winger – PSV Eindhoven, with an obligation to buy for a fee yet to be agree at the end of the loan period.

-       Jadel Katongo – Defender – Peterborough United.

Total number of permanent transfers out this summer: 13

Total number of exiting players this summer including those on loan: 25

Thoughts on our first-team-bound, incoming players?

Just the one, Savinho, and he looks really, really good from what I’ve seen so far. 👍 I do, however, hope that these ‘knee niggles’ aren’t the result of something more serious – yesterday was the second time it’s stopped him playing, after the Brazilian was replaced at half time in our opening-day fixture because he felt something in his knee, we were informed at the time. His manager went on to say that the 20-year-old recognised the feeling [from past issues?]. Mmmmm… 😕🤞

Any other thoughts?

As far as incoming players go, I’m with a lot of fans who were hoping to see a very capable, specialist left-wing back come in…but I agree also with those who say we’ve coped pretty well so far with left-footed centre-backs Nathan and Josko filling-in there.

I think we’re absolutely fine midfield-wise for another season, especially with the addition of Ilkay (that still sounds weird when I say it), and we have strength in depth in the wing department too, which is a good job considering we lost the very-impressive Oscar Bobb for 3 to 4 months with a fractured leg.

I’m not too bothered that we didn’t sign an additional striker (Divin Mubama is destined for the EDS this season) simply because Pep is the master of playing a 4-6-0 formation and/or using an attacking midfielder as a deep ‘false 9’; plus we have plenty of attacking, goalscoring threat in our squad from other areas.

As far as outgoings are concerned, yeah it was disappointing to see Julian leave but I total get the reasons behind the Argentine’s decision.

I was personally disappointed to see Micah Hamilton go, as I was hoping to see him get some domestic cup outings this season. Then, to find out that it was a permanent transfer genuinely shocked me, as he appeared to be one of those youngsters with real promise / a potential future at the club. 🤷‍♂️

Thank you, as always, for taking the time to ‘click on’ and read.

International break next and then I’ll be blogging again ahead of our home game against Brentford on Saturday 14^th September (3:00pm KO BST).

Quick blog announcement to finish off:

There’s a good chance that I will be going away the following weekend (20^th to 22^nd September) and although I should be back in time to watch our home clash with Arsenal, I won’t have the opportunity to get out a pre-match blog posting for that one.