It's Quiet the £250m return

No chance Akanji, or any defender leaves. Selling him or any other defender puts us back down to the same number of defenders we went into last season with. I don't need to remind a fellow blue of how we struggled to have a fit back 4 for most of the duration because we went into the season with too few defenders in the squad. It would be a sackable offence to repeat that horrendous mistake.
Khusanov and Ait-Nouri?
 
I don't think there is really any justification for having more than 5 CDs in the squad for (most likely) 2 places. Without Akanji, we'd still have Ake, Dias, Stones, Gvardiol and Khusanov, plus we have a couple of very highly rated academy CBs. Having 6 seems too many to me.

Obviously Stones and Ake are both injury prone but are also HG, so Akanji would appear to be the most likely to leave.

Having said that, I think they'll probably all end up staying this season.
I dont think you can be as specific as central defenders in this squad seeing as we've seen them all play in positions other than centre back with the exception of Dias. Just grouping them all as defenders along with the fullbacks seems more appropriate otherwise we are then saying we've only got 3 options at fullback which isnt the case.

We've got 7 proper defenders, then you've got midfielders in nunes and Lewis who you expect will predominantly play as defenders making it 9 defensive options. that's bang on average of what you expect to have in a squad of 25 and in line with most other squads.

Any less than that is leading us straight into the exact same issues as last season.
 
Aren't you a little bundle of fun
I'd forgotten to quote where a poster had asked why I questioned viana - so was replying to that


Also re pep leaving out gundog or akanji to force outgoing (like jack) this is the thing- pep plays them two (esp gundog) every chance he gets! So does he even want them gone?
 
I'd forgotten to quote where a poster had asked why I questioned viana - so was replying to that


Also re pep leaving out gundog or akanji to force outgoing (like jack) this is the thing- pep plays them two (esp gundog) every chance he gets! So does he even want them gone?
I can't actually understand the second sentence here, but the choice to play Gundogan and Akanji was one of a few factors that brought us back from the brink of missing out on the CL this season. Some here act like it was an absolute aberration without fully considering the results of his choice. Now we move on with a very talented group, and a new coaching team.

As regards Hugo Viana, we have only just seen the retirement of Txiki, so judgement of Viana, at this stage, is absurdly premature. In terms of recruitment, however, measuring talent against fee, I would argue that we have possibly had the strongest transfer window of any team out there, and the window IS STILL OPEN!
 
Vinny Jr meeting Rodri in the dressing room would be an interesting one, imagine Rodri walking in with his Ballon D'or
 

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