The Squad planning thread

Psychedelic Casual said:
We - arguably by pure chance - managed to have elite level players in the squad like Gündoğan and BSilva who were happy to play understudies/rotation players/played in different positions to suit the team and not particularly them (BSilva played as a false 9 about a dozen times in the 2021-22 season) to even higher level of elite players like De Bruyne and DSilva.

That’s very unusual, as players’ egos when you’re as good as Gundo and BSilva often see them want to be the main man in teams.

It’s more usual to see what happened with Álvarez, Palmer and now Savinho where they want to go somewhere and be assured of a starting place. So, as you say, a churn of squads each year happens more often.

It’s been the same at centre back for a long time, with a group like Kompany Otamendi Stones and Laporte or Dias Stones Aké Gvardiol and Akanji (and now add Khusanov) all vying for two places in the team or have to play at left or right back with not a single complaint.

Within another few years, we may not be able to land a group of players who are happy to rotate or play out of position like we’ve seen in Pep’s tenure.
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The recent comments by Rodri, Foden & Bernardo about the players preferring a large squad weren't just throw away comments imo.

If everyone was rotated equally & were focused on the end of season prizes, I doubt there's be many issues with players being pissed off at their game time.

Maybe big game time, but that's up to individual players to stake a claim for the first 11. We cannot continue to rinse out a small elite squad season after season, & I think our players realise this now, as we've seen the toll it takes.
 
Gabriel said:
While Doyle has rough edges, he’s left-footed, physically strong, and has over 12,000 minutes of solid football under his belt. He’s also arguably the best passer of a ball from the back. I just think a year at the club would benefit him and maybe even us. He’ll be sold now of course.
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Norwich , Leicester, Sheffield United , Wrexham and Coventry are looking at him lol
 
I think it was Tolmie who said a couple of weeks ago that once training started there was going to be some tough conversations. We all thought he was meaning with some of the older players but perhaps the talks were about how this year, with the set up of the current squad and what they plan to do some players would not be a shoe in for a first team spot. With the World Cup ahead some would think that they need to be playing week in week out to claim spots in their national teams. Only a guess but maybe the reason why the media are picking up on stories of certain players being happy to move on if a club comes in for them.

I have to believe this season Pep will utilise a balance of the younger players who have joined and some of the older guys. It's all about team structure and he's not daft you cannot play all the slower players at the same time like we did at times during last winter.

One thing is certain it's very exciting seeing Hugo continue to reshape the squad after we all thought maybe the incomings were done. Sometimes as with Cole, letting a younger player leave can look wrong but I suppose you have to have conviction in what you are doing and that policy has been pretty good for us during the last decade or so.
 
Watched a lot of games recently, and while most players are just getting match fitness, one player has stood out, as one who could improve our team, Amadou Onana, the giant French DM, the lad is quick, strong, good in the tackle, 23 and decent at carrying the ball, he is also getting better, Villa bought him for £50 million so he would not be cheap, but he is better than Baleba. I know we have 2 DM`s plus O Reilly, even a lot of other players that can play there, but Rodri is not fit worse case may never get fully fit, KDB did not, i do not know what to make of Nico as Pep does not trust him, O Reilly is needed else where, and i would not register Gundogan or Kovacic for the PL they may want to stay but they both block better players.
 
If even a fraction of these player in, player out links the last 48 hours have any merit, boy did we under-appreciate Txiki. No rhyme or reason to any of it with the season starting in 3 days!
 
Andouble said:
If even a fraction of these player in, player out links the last 48 hours have any merit, boy did we under-appreciate Txiki. No rhyme or reason to any of it with the season starting in 3 days!
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It's the norm for clubs to not even negotiate until late in a transfer window. Some of the "breaking news" stories will be about transfers that clubs have been talking about for weeks. I can recall a few windows where Txiki took a lot of stick on here for signings that were late in the window and a few of pure squad standard players. Hugo has done a good job and this last 2 weeks will be all about getting a few out of the door without paying excesses to do so. The four signings before the club WC were done with haste and all for really decent fees.
 
Mr HJ said:
I think it was Tolmie who said a couple of weeks ago that once training started there was going to be some tough conversations. We all thought he was meaning with some of the older players but perhaps the talks were about how this year, with the set up of the current squad and what they plan to do some players would not be a shoe in for a first team spot. With the World Cup ahead some would think that they need to be playing week in week out to claim spots in their national teams. Only a guess but maybe the reason why the media are picking up on stories of certain players being happy to move on if a club comes in for them.

I have to believe this season Pep will utilise a balance of the younger players who have joined and some of the older guys. It's all about team structure and he's not daft you cannot play all the slower players at the same time like we did at times during last winter.

One thing is certain it's very exciting seeing Hugo continue to reshape the squad after we all thought maybe the incomings were done. Sometimes as with Cole, letting a younger player leave can look wrong but I suppose you have to have conviction in what you are doing and that policy has been pretty good for us during the last decade or so.
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Seems like the difficult conversations were actually every veteran telling us they're not going anywhere and Pep telling Viana that all our January signings bar Marmoush are hardly going to see any playing time.

Pretty difficult.
 
After the departures of Grealish and McAtee, will we be lacking homegrown players this season?
 
daveyboybluemoon said:
Here's how I have it broke down if any use

There's 3 issues if we assume all players in the "To Leave" part below do actually go

First we need to move on 2 NHG players at least to comply with PL/CL Rules (Echeverri seems the obvious one plus one more?) based on the current squad. By doing this it would give us 23 players over age in each squad plus Lewis & O'Reilly who don't need to be registered meaning the squad would be down to 25 players (again this assumes we can move on thee 8 on to leave list)

Second issue is if we get it down 25 players, that is still probably 2 or 3 more at least than Pep would want. Will Vianna over rule him and say you need slightly more than you normally like to have to try and avoid the injury issues from last season? (I haven't included any EDS players like Mukasa that might be on the training with the squad)

Third issues is then is the balance of the squad correct? Most would probably like a RB, NHG seems improbable given the amount we already have, a HG player would be fine, we have the space in both squads, but then means the squad is up to 26 when we know Pep wants it smaller

Vianna is going to be busy the next couple of weeks....

HG= Home Grown NHG = Non Home Grown CT = Club Trained AT = Association Trained

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Ortega hasn't left yet, so that will be the case only once he does.
 
Either Akanji goes on a free or Nico G goes on loan not sure how else we get there if it's Savinho or Rodrygo.

Can't see Gundo, Bernardo or Kovacic going at this point, and any attackers leaving leaves us way too light.
 
Donnarumma. Trafford. Betinelli

Lewis. Nunes. Stones. Ake. Akanji. Dias. Khusanov. Gvardiol. Ait-Nouri.

O'Reily. Rodri. Gonzalez. Gundogan. Kovacic. Bernardo. Cherki. Foden. Reijnders. Doku. Bobb. Rodrygo.

Haaland. Marmoush.

provided Donnarumma and Rodrygo happen, we'd have a 26 man squad we'd need another foreign player to leave. Pep also likes a 22/23 man squad lol

Who's going? My money is on a Gundogan or Akanji.
 
citytill1die84 said:
Donnarumma. Trafford. Betinelli

Lewis. Nunes. Stones. Ake. Akanji. Dias. Khusanov. Gvardiol. Ait-Nouri.

O'Reily. Rodri. Gonzalez. Gundogan. Kovacic. Bernardo. Cherki. Foden. Reijnders. Doku. Bobb. Rodrygo.

Haaland. Marmoush.

provided Donnarumma and Rodrygo happen, we'd have a 26 man squad we'd need another foreign player to leave. Pep also likes a 22/23 man squad lol

Who's going? My money is on a Gundogan or Akanji.
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Gundo imo, easiest to move on and could release him on a free and he could get a big signing on fee in Turkey.
 
citytill1die84 said:
Donnarumma. Trafford. Betinelli

Lewis. Nunes. Stones. Ake. Akanji. Dias. Khusanov. Gvardiol. Ait-Nouri.

O'Reily. Rodri. Gonzalez. Gundogan. Kovacic. Bernardo. Cherki. Foden. Reijnders. Doku. Bobb. Rodrygo.

Haaland. Marmoush.

provided Donnarumma and Rodrygo happen, we'd have a 26 man squad we'd need another foreign player to leave. Pep also likes a 22/23 man squad lol

Who's going? My money is on a Gundogan or Akanji.
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I’d be happy with either (or even both) of those two leaving, to be honest.

We’re well covered in both positions, and frankly neither of them are part of our long term future.

That said - I can’t see either of them finding a deal, so I’d say we’re stuck with them both at least til January.

Can’t recall where I read it, but there’s a suggestion Kovacic might be left out of the CL squad list due to his injury, with the Club re-evaluating in January.

Might be the least contentious solution.
 
I
salfordbluetrue said:
Watched a lot of games recently, and while most players are just getting match fitness, one player has stood out, as one who could improve our team, Amadou Onana, the giant French DM, the lad is quick, strong, good in the tackle, 23 and decent at carrying the ball, he is also getting better, Villa bought him for £50 million so he would not be cheap, but he is better than Baleba. I know we have 2 DM`s plus O Reilly, even a lot of other players that can play there, but Rodri is not fit worse case may never get fully fit, KDB did not, i do not know what to make of Nico as Pep does not trust him, O Reilly is needed else where, and i would not register Gundogan or Kovacic for the PL they may want to stay but they both block better players.
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think he is a top class palyer
 
citytill1die84 said:
Donnarumma. Trafford. Betinelli

Lewis. Nunes. Stones. Ake. Akanji. Dias. Khusanov. Gvardiol. Ait-Nouri.

O'Reily. Rodri. Gonzalez. Gundogan. Kovacic. Bernardo. Cherki. Foden. Reijnders. Doku. Bobb. Rodrygo.

Haaland. Marmoush.

provided Donnarumma and Rodrygo happen, we'd have a 26 man squad we'd need another foreign player to leave. Pep also likes a 22/23 man squad lol

Who's going? My money is on a Gundogan or Akanji.
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It doesn't look like any of the old guard plan on moving.

If we can't move any of them on, I'd omit Kova from the CL squad and let him get back up to speed in domestic competitions. Pep has said he won't be fit until October, so he would only miss a handful of CL games.

That gives us until January to work on moves for one or more of them.
 
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