High risk, high reward: assessing Posh’s transfer window
Updated: 5 days ago
Transfer windows are notoriously difficult to grade early.
A signing that looks inspired in September can look disastrous by Christmas. Likewise, players written off early can end up becoming some of the most important members of a squad. So this isn’t an attempt to grade every Peterborough United signing after a handful of games.
The question is whether Posh did what they needed to do.
Peterborough United entered the summer needing a fairly significant refresh. It needed multiple genuine starters, more leadership, players comfortable on the ball and, particularly given how Williams wants his side to play, pace and quality in wide areas.
In terms of sheer activity, you can’t accuse the club of sitting on its hands or not spending money.
There are plenty of new faces. There have also been plenty of departures. Money has come into the club, and several players who needed football elsewhere have gone out on loan.
The question is not whether Posh did enough business. The question is, was the business they did good enough?
As ever, Posh bought young to develop. They gambled. Will it work?
The ins
Liam Kelly is the best example of Posh nailing a signing. Losing Archie Collins was significant. Whatever your view on him (I cannot understand those now saying he was overrated), he was an extremely reliable League One midfielder and virtually ever-present for Posh. His move to a good Huddersfield side demonstrates that.
Replacing him with Kelly, simultaneously adding experience and leadership, looks like excellent business. MK Dons already appear to miss him, looking at their early results and listening to some MK fans.
Kelly has looked every inch the plug-and-play midfielder Posh needed: comfortable receiving possession, intelligent with the ball and experienced enough to give a young team some much-needed control.
There are other signings that fit the Williams brief.
Tom O’Connor, as we know, is comfortable on the ball and capable of playing through pressure. He is probably never going to be the most dominant pure defender, but with one next to him (more on this later), he is a great fit and player. His injury record is a problem. I had to write a correction to this, after he came off within 20 minutes against Wednesday. Stylistically, the attraction is obvious. But we need to learn our lesson on signing injury-prone players. The best ability is availability.
Harrison Jones looks after the ball well and has started the season in better form than others in the midfield. Ethan Williams is technically very good. Owura Edwards has frightening pace.
Harry Ashfield has only just arrived, so making any serious judgement on him would be silly, but he looked technically assured in his cameo against Wednesday.
Even Josh Feeney, whose arrival was accelerated by the enormous blow of losing Sam Hughes, looked encouraging on his first and second appearances.
Individually, you can understand the logic behind almost all of them.
A slightly different Posh gamble
It’s interesting to note what seems to be a slight shift in recruitment.
Posh's recruitment model has always involved gambling on youth, developing players and creating value. That hasn't disappeared.
What has changed is the pond they are fishing in.
There are now considerably more clubs competing for the obvious breakout players in League Two and non-league. Posh can still find a Danny Ormerod, and doing so remains exactly the sort of thing the club should be attempting, but monopolising that section of the market is far more difficult than it once was. Just look at the money and level Abdulmalik went to, or Mendy, or Kyreece Lisbie. Even the Ormerod fee was the third largest in non-League history, for a player who only really thrived in the National League North, not the main National League.
So there has been a slight change of tack.
Vernon Masara, Ethan Williams, Harrison Jones, and now Ashfield are all variations on the same idea: young players around the fringes of bigger clubs, in their U-21’s who have shown enough talent to suggest there might be considerably more there.
Not established League Two performers, or the most exciting National League talent. Not necessarily players with 60 senior appearances behind them. Players like that (Feeney), we can only get on loan.
With more competition for the traditional Posh signing, adapting is necessary. But it increases the uncertainty of success.
Concern still looms
As mentioned, last summer’s business was positive, and so we should have some faith.
But for me, the wings remain the part that gives me pause. Edwards has extraordinary pace. As does Masara. Williams is clearly talented. There is upside in all three. But Luke Williams' football places enormous responsibility on his wide players, and right now, an academy player in Bolu at 17, who the club insists is playing out of position, looks to be our best option by a mile.
If those wide players develop quickly, the entire complexion of the team changes. If they don't, I still think Posh are in trouble. There are certain positions where you can survive a developmental signing, taking six months to find his feet. I'm not convinced this system allows that luxury out wide.
Sam Hughes injury changes things again
The other obvious caveat is Hughes and the defence. Having him available would make this squad look considerably different. Without him, I would still have liked another experienced centre-back. At this stage, I don’t think we can expect to see him again, almost at all. I hope I am wrong.
Feeney’s first appearance was promising, and his pedigree is obvious. But asking yet another very young defender to immediately compensate for losing your dominant centre-half is another sizeable gamble to add to the pile. Especially when the other starter, O’Connor is not a physical monster, and liable to be out injured as well.
Ultimately, we’ll have essentially the same backline as last season, with Feeney in for Lees. Unless we see substantial steps forward from a number of the backline, that could easily spell trouble.
The exits were necessary
Kyrell Lisbie hurt to lose. He has already shown at Millwall why they wanted him with some very encouraging displays. But the club needed a significant sale. Once Garbett was injured, the pool of realistic options to sell was very small, and Lisbie pushed for the move as well.
Nobody wanted Lisbie to leave, but Peterborough's model requires sales and sometimes the player you would most like to keep is precisely the player other clubs are prepared to pay serious money for.
Elsewhere, the club deserves some credit for moving players on.
Getting Abraham Odoh out early was welcome for both parties. Cian Hayes' exit was sad but required (he has subsequently suffered another injury), while the likes of George Nevett, Pemi Aderoju and David Kamara should all benefit enormously from playing senior football regularly. It’s good to see us actually loaning out talent in the EFL.
I'd have liked Joe Andrews to get a move slightly higher up the pyramid, but football is better than no football.
There are still players Posh would probably move if the opportunity arose. The fact many are still here isn't particularly surprising. You cannot simply decide you no longer want somebody and expect another club to arrive with a transfer fee that suits us. Plus, players like Garbett and Frith have been injured.
Considering the size of the restructuring required, Posh have shifted a reasonable amount of the squad while recovering some much-needed money in the process.
So, was it enough?
There are things I really like about this window. Kelly looks to be an excellent signing. Jones has started encouragingly. There is clearly talent in Williams. O'Connor makes sense, but just can’t stay fit. Feeney could prove a very clever addition.
Posh have addressed most, if not all of the positions they identified needing players in, going into the summer. This won’t be 2024, where you can look back at the recruitment and struggle to find almost anything that worked.
Last summer produced Lisbie. Harry Leonard was a hit. Alex Bass started this season badly but has, overall, proved a good signing. O'Connor showed his quality, when fit. Garbett is plainly talented.
So, there is evidence that the recruitment has improved. But this summer requires an awful lot of projection. If Kelly, Williams, Edward, Jones and Feeney are all good League One players immediately, Posh probably look absolutely fine.
But that is also the problem. Quite a lot needs to go right.
And ultimately, your view of the window probably depends on what you think Peterborough United should be trying to achieve this season. If the ambition is simply to stabilise and stay in League One, I can absolutely see this squad being good enough if players develop.
If the expectation is considerably higher than that, I think you are asking an enormous number of young and relatively unproven players to come off at once; which I don’t see happening.
Our margin of error is also so much thinner than in previous years. Two seasons of back-to-back lower-placed finishes are no accident. The league table actually can lie for a while, but not for two full seasons. That leaves no margin for error on squad building. If you do get worse and miss out on too many players, you’re right in trouble.
Some of these new signings will improve considerably as the season progresses. There is plenty of upside here. But not all of them will, they never all come off.
Overall grade: C
I mean that more positively than it probably reads.
C is a passing grade (this would roughly be a 5 for any youngsters reading).
Posh filled most of the holes we came into the summer with. They replaced Collins impressively, raised the needed money, moved a reasonable number of unwanted players on and brought in footballers who broadly fit the manager's style.
However I think we’d all have loved a statement signing, or a little more experience bought in, like Leyton Orient (similar sized club who finished below us) were able to do.
There is a route to looking back on this as a B+ or even an A-level window. However, I fear the opposite is also true.
Right now, there are too many players we're projecting onto rather than knowing about. The Hughes injury has left the defence more vulnerable than intended, and the wide areas remain such an important part of Williams' football that I can't ignore the uncertainty over the players in those spots over the course of a League One season. We look okay between both boxes, but not where it really counts, inside them. There is time for that to develop.
High risk. Potentially very high reward.
The recruitment department has taken its swings. Now we find out how many are hits.
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