THIS summer window feels, in the immediate aftermath, like one of the best Barnsley have had for a while.

It was one striker signing from being perfect but, at the end of last season, keeping the likes of Adam Phillips, Luca Connell and Davis-Keillor-Dunn, who are all performing well, adding eight new players who have mostly made very good starts, while moving on some of the previous flop signings, would have been seen as a major success.

There has been the inevitable online onslaught mainly aimed at sporting director Mladen Sormaz, but collectively the Reds have had a positive summer.

There is still the free agent market but there is only an outside chance they will use it.

Nothing was announced on Monday, other than Phillips emphatically coming out on social media to confirm he wasn’t ‘f****** leaving’ amid rumours of an approach from Luton Town, until after the deadline as is often the case with Barnsley.

Defender Jake Rooney became the eighth signing of the summer, half of whom are loans with two free agents while free transfers Patrick Kelly and Reyes Cleary are the only arrivals on a contract longer than a year.

Changes by the EFL this year to clamp down on the portion of clubs’ income and owner investment they can spend on transfers and wages have seen – other than with big-spending Huddersfield – a reduction in the amount of cash being thrown around across the league this summer.

Barnsley are one window into the Conor Hourihane ‘reset’, after a really poor season by their standards on and off the pitch.

They are adapting to a new formation which has seen a clear-out and rebuild of the squad in wide areas. In that context, they have got a lot of good work done this summer.

The signings had to be better than those brought in either last summer or in the disappointing January window.

The only player who signed in either window last season who has been starting regularly this season is the excellent Keillor-Dunn. Although that is partly because of injuries to the likes of Georgie Gent and Marc Roberts, there had also been a series of flop signings.

Hourihane has been slightly more involved than some of his predecessors in the recruitment process – although that is in danger of being overblown at times.

Some of the signings, such as David McGoldrick and Rooney, are players he played alongside while he has vetted them all not just as footballers but to determine whether their characters will fit into the new culture he is trying to build at Oakwell.

But he is still one part of a team of recruiters and – with no one on the outside truly knowing the inner workings at Oakwell – it cannot be only praise for Conor when good players arrive and only blame for Mladen if they don’t.

KEEPING STAR PLAYERS CRUCIAL

Crucially they kept all their star players, which was not expected at the start of the summer when chairman Neerav Parekh said they would ‘absolutely have to sell’.

They have managed to move on some fringe players on decent wages which will save money, and not spent heavily on incomings, but clearly the owners will be footing the bill again in order to keep together a squad that can challenge for promotion.

That flies in the face of accusations of a lack of ambition at board level.

We are only six games into a long and gruelling season, but Barnsley currently look capable of at least being in the mix for the top six. The early points tally of 13 from six games is very promising. They seem more organised than last season, their home form is much better and the connection with the fans vastly improved.

They now know their squad and, after some time off with tired bodies, they will work together on the training pitch again ahead of a less hectic September schedule.

DOUBTS OVER FORWARD NUMBERS

The one real concern is a lack of depth in attack. The two senior strikers are McGoldrick – who turns 38 soon and is unlikely to lead the line every game during a busy winter – and Keillor-Dunn, who was superb up front on Saturday with two goals, having been on the wing. They each tend to start so a significant injury to one or both could be very damaging.

The Reds could have really done with a third option to provide depth and a different type of threat, ideally someone who can also operate on the wing. John McAtee may have been perfect but the Reds and Bolton could not agree a deal.

Their wide players currently are Caylan Vickers, who has made the right wing his own during a fantastic start, Cleary and Neil Farrugia who are both yet to start a league game for Hourihane but have impressed off the bench, and Fabio Jalo who is still injured and set to miss at least another month.

The quality is there, but is the quantity?

We shall see.

CLASS IN MIDFIELD AND DEPTH IN DEFENCE

Barnsley’s midfield is extremely strong.

Connell and Phillips are close to being back to their best – which is about as good as you get in League One – having been rejuvenated under Hourihane, while they are both approaching 150 games for the club and could become cast-iron modern day legends if they add a promotion to years of good service.

Academy duo Jono Bland and Vimal Yoganathan, along with new signing Patrick Kelly, are providing competition and freshness.

Jon Russell, who has scored seven times in his last seven Reds starts, has only played 55 minutes in the league this season and was an unused substitute on Saturday.

But he stayed and looks set to add to his 99 Barnsley appearances – a huge talent to be in reserve and a back-up to Phillips in the attacking midfield position.

They can either play a 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3.

As for defence, Rooney’s arrival as a right-sided centre-back or right-back suddenly adds much more depth to the back line. Their centre-back options are him, Marc Roberts – who is due to back from injury probably in October – and Mael de Gevigney on the right, with Josh Earl and Jack Shepherd on the left, while young Connor Barratt has also been involved.

The challenge now for the coaching staff is to find the right centre-back pairing out of all those options.

De Gevigney and Rooney can also cover for Tennai Watson at right-back, which is the more defensive side of the back four that often becomes a three in possession. Earl or Watson can fill in on the left if needed until Georgie Gent returns from injury to compete with Nathanael Ogbeta as the attack-minded full-back.