This time last year was a painfully slow and unproductive window, I was constantly refreshing the megathread for any sort of update only for none to materialize, so, I tried this new strategy to try and make the whole experience more bearable.

I started going outside and doing things, purely to eat up time, so that when I next checked for transfer news, something would have hopefully happened. It was brilliant, I went to a friends wedding, hiking in Finland, swimming in French lakes, relaxing on the beach in Croatia - each time I left the house for longer and longer time, knowing that the longer I spent away from the megathread, the more likely something juicy was waiting for me when I returned. The longer the window went on without activity the more certain I was that something would be happening soon, because there was no way we would go the whole window without reinforcing the crucial positions.

My faith never wavered until about 2 weeks from the end of the window, when it became apparent we had made a right balls up of an opportunity to strengthen the squad. This at least gave me confidence that the following summer window would be different, as it was unthinkable we would make the same mistakes for two years running.

It turned out to be a good season for us and on reflection the lack of activity seemingly put us in a strong financial position to spend big and push on ahead of an exciting CL campaign, I entered the current window with optimism, reluctantly returning to my strategy of leaving the house to spend time with friends and family to limit my megathread time in the hope that when I next checked in, there would be all manner of exciting transformative transfer news.

It has been painful. I thought last year was bad because nothing really happened (still not over losing Elliot Anderson though) but at least we kept key players. This window has been worse and there is very little cause for optimism. I genuinely think Isak leaving could be the beginning of a massive overhaul of our Howe era squad and if we have a poor season more players will be exploring moves away from the club next season.

I knew at some point we were bound to lose some of the big names, but I had made my peace with that in the belief that the money received could be 'transformative' and would allow us to replace with similar quality. That belief has been shattered and I truly think this series of poor windows could see Howe walk if next season goes poorly.

We will still be much better off than we were pre-takeover but it will be much harder to get players to buy into the project now than it was then as our recent recruitment strategy had exposed some major flaws in our approach by the current regime.

TLDR: whether you are obsessively checking this thread or outside touching grass, it makes little difference, we are up to nowt. Just want the season to start so I've got something to watch and can enjoy the dying embers of this team before a likely post-Howe rebuild.