We're definitely stronger. Selling Jesus, Sterling and Zinchenko for about £130m was superb business. They've been great servants for us, but they never will be world class and, let's be honest, that's our level now.
In all honesty, even if we'd just brought in Haaland we'd be stronger. He's simply far better than Sterling and Jesus could ever hope to be and I quite liked the pair of them. In reality, only Mbappe could come close to Haaland but I think Haaland is a better player. He is the first genuinely world class player the club has bought and Pep will make him into the finest striker of all time, I'm sure of that.
Keeping Bernardo was a big win, but I hope the club are planning on him leaving in the summer. He's been an exceptional pro, but if Real etc come in with a good offer we can't stand in his way. I love Bernardo and really hope he changes his mind!
I think the signings of Alvarez, Akanji and Gomez though have all been better than we imagined. It's astonishing to think (from what I can remember) we've made a profit in this window and improved the squad.
One thing I thought though is that because Liverpool and Chelsea have fallen away and we've got Haaland on a crazy streak, it's allowing Pep to give the youth players minutes. If we can go 3/4-0 up then we can comfortably allow Palmer/Lewis etc to play 20 minutes and that will do them a LOT of good, far better than going on loan.
The club and scouts deserve a massive amount of credit for this transfer windows, it's been insanely good.
