Joey Barton was two signings short of having the ideal transfer window, admitting he wanted another winger and a centre-back, but he believes Bristol Rovers faced a series of challenges in the market.
Stepping up to League One, Rovers have naturally faced stiffer competition for players from big-spending clubs, but the manager says that has been compounded by other factors, namely the cost of living in Bristol and its geography in relation to typical football "hotbeds" such as London and the North West.
The Gas made 10 permanent signings this summer as well as agreeing new deals for out-of-contract trio Antony Evans, Glenn Whelan and Trevor Clarke, and Barton is satisfied with the business, but he agreed with the assessment that live for the club in League One is markedly different to in League Two, where it possesses greater allure and spending power.
And with Elliot Anderson, Connor Taylor, Luke Thomas and Sam Nicholson – important contributors last season – all plying their trade elsewhere this season, Rovers have managed to accrue a respectable haul of eight points from seven games without being fully functional.
Barton believes Rovers have enough quality to secure their League One status "without looking over their shoulder" this season, but there are different challenges for the manager on and off the pitch, particularly in the transfer market with Barton admitting several times throughout the summer that they had been gazumped by rivals when in pursuit of players.
According to the Hometrack UK House Price Index, Bristol's average house price of £331,400 is the fifth-highest of all cities in the UK, more than £100,000 more expensive than Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Birmingham, Sheffield and Nottingham.
Rovers' recruitment under Barton has shown a strong affiliation with players based in the North West, with Bobby Thomas, Jordan Rossiter and Lewis Gibson the latest recruits from that region, joining the likes of Evans, Sam Finley and others.
"It’s also the catchment area of where players live," Barton said when asked about competing with bigger clubs for signings. "At this level, it’s expensive to live in Bristol. If you’re competing against Carlisle and other difficult places to get to, but when you go into League One and you’ve got a lot of Manchester or Liverpool or North West clubs and you’ve got a lot of London clubs.
"Lads at this level are probably earning between £50,000-250,000 a year if you’re doing really well at League One level. The cost of living in Bristol is really expensive. We can pay the same as certain teams in some regards, but the cost of living in those cities is a lot cheaper than it is in Bristol.
"When it comes to that shakeup, sometimes you lose out a bit due to it being a bit cheaper to live in the north than it is in the south. Especially for us, we kind of have to recruit from everywhere.
"The South West isn’t a football heartland. A lot of footballers aren’t born here or developed here. They tend to come from London or Greater London, or the North West of England. You get smatterings in the Midlands and everywhere else, but on the whole you get a huge hotbed of football in both of those areas. Both of those areas are either two-and-a-half hours away from us or an hour-and-a-half away from us."
Rovers are 16th in the table after seven games, putting them on course for the mid-table finish that most supporters have predicted for the season. However, while being competitive the Gas are yet to replicate the performance levels of the second half of last season.
However, the manager believes his team will make gradual improvements as the season goes on.
"I look back to Newport, Swindon, Stevenage beating us here last year," Barton said. "We’re miles better as a football club and, listening to the noise in the stands, the fans are with the team. It’s markedly different than 12 months ago.
"Are we open and free-flowing like we were at the back end of last year with Elliot Anderson and all the magic happening? No, of course we’re not, but we’re in a process of building another team and another group. I think we’ve got a lot of good components, a lot of lads who are young and hungry and desperate to get better. I think as we knit this group together, January and February is usually when my teams start to find a bit of momentum and build a crescendo.
"My teams always develop late in the season because I don’t have the ability like Ipswich to go and buy Richard Keogh, who’s 34, for £400,000 or Marcus Harness. I’ve seen them take a few off the board. They’ve got huge investment and they want to be in the Championship and they’re capable of spending £4m-5m on salaries and transfer fees. They are capable of blowing them out of the water. Then you tap on Derby, who can have a go, Sheffield Wednesday, Pompey.
"We’re in the free transfer and loan market. I wish I could go and spend £500,000 on a striker. Wael (Al-Qadi) has been superb to us and given us the finances to take Luke McCormick for a couple hundred grand, which is a big take for us. Obviously, James Connolly and Jordan Rossiter the same. He’s given us more than enough support in the market and we think we’ve invested that in the right type of lads at the right age, but without bleating on about it we’ve got to gradually build the group.
"We’re not going to go from a League Two side that got promoted on the last kick of the last game of the season to winning League One. I wish it was the case and if we kept Connor Taylor and Elliot Anderson, I think we might have been in the space but that’s a Championship-level defender and a Premier League-level player."
Of all the business Rovers have completed in recent months, Barton believes the most significant was not a new signing but tying down star forward Aaron Collins to a new three-year contract. The 25-year-old – last season's top scorer – has made a stellar start to life in League One with four goals and three assists in seven appearances.
The manager, who is open-minded about adding a winger to his squad if a good option is available in the free agent market, is content with his resources.
"I think the best bit of business from the summer was securing Aaron Collins to a long-term contract because he looks a real player," the manager added.
"We’ve got more than enough to get cracking with what we’ve got. Are we going to be in the Champions League at the end of the season? I think it might be tricky for us, lads, but you never know.
"We’ll build the best team we can get here and the club is in such a different position to 12 months ago. Had I got another winger and left-sided centre-half, I’d have been delighted with the window. As it was, we didn’t quite manage to do that. We might be able to get stuck into the free agent market but we will see how that plays out. If we don’t sign another player, we’ve got enough to be getting on with here.
"We’re always trying to take good players. It’s tricky. The loan market is probably better in January because teams have exited the EFL Trophy and played the early part of the Premier League 2 and the European nonsense that goes on for the kids at that point.
"Sometimes the better loans, they’ve been kept in with the first team, had six months of developing and then they come out in the January, so we’ve got to keep scrapping away."
SIGN UP: To receive our free Rovers newsletter, bringing you the latest from the Mem
READ NEXT:
