Yesterday, we looked at some of the Lincoln City managers’ first transfer windows of the past seasons and rated them.

Since Keith Alexander in 2002,  Chris Cohen and Tom Shaw are the 13th Lincoln City managers facing their first transfer window (this is the same intro as yesterday, in case you missed it). Some of those managers were coming in fresh, and others had half a season to put their squads together, but on 12 occasions before now, since 2002, a new manager has been forced to build a squad. Players have left, others come in, and excitement has either been palpable or mooted. I thought about the summers that seemed like a success, the players who, on paper, should have been great for the club.

However, when they signed, people were generally happy; that’s the point that got me thinking. Fans get ‘underwhelmed’ by some signings, carried away with others, but how often are our assessments of a new manager’s first window right? In some cases, we have nothing to base our opinions on other than instinct, but we still try, don’t we?

The truth is, we don’t know. So, in order to stop us talking about players we’ve signed that we can’t possibly judge, here are the ten times since 2002 that a new manager has had his first transfer window and can be judged. For context, I have added the division, the players who had just left and where I think our budget would have fallen that season. I don’t know the budgets for sure, I just have a good guesstimate.

Hopefully, even if this provides nothing other than light reading, you’ll get some enjoyment out of it.

Disclaimer: I may have missed the odd player off or credited one with signing in pre-season who arrived late, but it’s not intentional. I have also taken the window as being June to end of August, so if I have missed a player, my apologies!

David Holdsworth (2012)

Division: Blue Square Premier

Estimated Budget: Mid Table (£400,000)

Ins: Rob Duffy, Gary Mills, Ashley Westwood, Andrew Boyce, Adam Smith, Frazer Cobb, Karl Cunningham, Dan Gray, Geoffrey Gouviea, Graham Hutchison, Mo Fofana, Vadane Oliver, Luke Daley, Connor Robinson, Mark McCammon, Colin Larkin, Paul Farman

Outs: Joe Anyon, Jean-Francois Christophe, Danny Hone, Andrew Hutchinson, Francis Laurent, Jefferson Louis, Richard Paquette, Niall Rodney, Simon Russell, Tony Sinclair, Karlton Watson, James Wilson, Sam Smith, Josh Gowling, Ashley Westwood

Rating at the time: 6/10

Rating with hindsight: 6/10

I’m going out on a limb here: I have a soft spot for Holdsworth. I know he wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but after Tilson and his monumental mess-up, Holdsworth had nothing. The club barely had a pot to pee in, and I’m going to suggest we had a bottom-half budget. We only just avoided relegation; we had no football fortune on the pitch, there was nothing but a bleak, desolate future mapped out for a club already mired in fifth-tier hell.

Out came the black book, and I don’t think we did too badly. The Ashley Westwood debacle was amusing: he signed and was gone within weeks after a better offer from Portsmouth. The likes of Vadiane Oliver, Paul Farman, and Andrew Boyce had solid enough careers with us and beyond, while Colin Larkin was decent.

This window is all about filler, and there was plenty of that. Holdsworth was a tinkerman, and he had a lot of changes to make. There were some wild misses here as well: Gouviea was a flop, Duffy got injured and played three times, Mills was captain until he wasn’t and lasted half a season.

There were some promotions from the youth setup as well, making this, on the whole, a transitional window.

Biggest Hit

Paul Farman had already been in on loan, but there is no doubt he went on to be an Imps’ legend. Vadaine Oliver was probably a big hit in terms of moving on to better things, but from a City perspective, when you look down those names, Farman was the start of us having decent keepers, a trend we’ve kept on with up to this day.

Biggest Flop

I’m going for Duffy. He’d been decent for Mansfield with 16 in 42 matches, and had hit double figures for Grimsby the season before. He was as close to a marquee signing as the budget allowed, and yet he was injured almost straight away, coming off as we lost to Newport and not appearing again.