At risk of harping back to West Ham, just looked at there opening fixtures
Liverpool (A)
Bournemouth (H)
Arsenal (A)
Wolves (H)
Everton (A)
Chelsea (H)
Man Utd (H)
Brighton (A)
Spurs (H)
Leicester (A)
Thats 5 of last seasons top 6 in htere first 10 games, chuck in Everton & Leicester away, thats 7 out of 10 difficult games plus Brighton away is no easy one either.
Grantid they have more at home than we did in our bad run last term but things could spiral.............................................................or they could do what Burnley did and do really well with a difficult early fixture list
I think this is an ok discussion here, as people are raising West Ham as evidence for our window being negative.
I think they have bought well, if they can gel them. However there is risk with most of their players. Their window seems very similar to ours, there's a range of players bought but gelling them together is pretty difficult. I also think, like us they have a manager who doesn't massively want to be there but has come to the job with the opportunity to spend a lot of money and shape a side of top players. I am not sure he's massively keen to get on the training pitch and work with them and the job seems a bit of a gravy train to him. The general reports seem quite negative on him, and at his age it's worth noting.
Most of their signings could go either way. Anderson could be this seasons Salah (a similar profile) or could be another lad from Seria A who flops. Yarmelenko has struggled at Dortmund and is 28. Wilshere remains injury prone and there are questions about how regularly he can compete each week in the PL. Diop is a highly rated young centre back, but it's a big change. They might all come good, and if the do they will challenge for the top 4. However I'd say their manager was their weak link.
I think that fixture list is brutal too. I have them down as having 2 (at best 3) winnable games from that opening 9. You could easily see them having 9 points from their opening 9 games and open revolt. Like Koeman with us, their manager would likely throw the towel in and say he can't do anymore with them. I hope so.
