As Palace fans, what the last week has shown us is the depth of the strategic planning & work put into this window. The club have set themselves criteria for the type & age of player they bring in, there is a specific budget & a number of positions they want to cover.

The is a sequencing to who is brought in & how the back-up plans are also managed so at no stage we’re back at first base. Gallagher & Batshuayi moves demonstrate this. Palace want a striker & a midfielder. Gallagher would have joined if another striker would have come in.

Gallagher deal was all in place but the forward couldn’t be landed despite significant bids in for him. Plan B is at Chelsea, a need therefore to not complete the Gallagher one. Going for Michy didn’t start on Monday when the press picked up on it, that has been worked on weeks.

Simultaneously the club have been working on multiple deals, with multiple clubs, multiple players & even more agents. Ferguson, Eze, Batshuayi are pieces in a very carefully laid out transfer strategy that still gives us budget to strengthen further.

It’s not often a club like ours will look to bring in 4 or 5 players for the first team squad in 1 window. I think we can all see the progress we have made since the reactive & far more scatter gun approach when we were first promoted.