Is it time for a mini-rebuild?

The key question to all this is what happens with Pep's contract. If he doesn't want to carry on, it makes recruitment more difficult as players won't be as keen to sign for a club if they aren't sure who the new boss is.

My own personal feeling is that the team this season is weaker than it was last year and that it's cost us another treble.

Anyone who's not committed needs to go. If the rumours that Ederson is up for playing in Saudi, he needs to go and if Bernardo is still not wanting to stay we need to move him on too sadly. I'd be gutted if these 2 left as they've been magnificent for us.

We need to shift the ones who just aren't good enough (Nunes, Phillips, Gomez, Kovacic). We need to stop buying players who aren't good enough. Kovacic has been good at times but he can't be trusted to give Rodri a rest and he doesn't replace Gundogan either. He just doesn't influence games for me.

We need to look at players like Dias and Grealish who don't look like they are improving. These players just aren't essential players now - they've been overtaken and we're probably able to land a decent fee for them. I don't see Dias as being the player we bought and Grealish isn't a winger or midfielder - he's just not scoring enough, not creating enough or influencing games either.

Sadly, we need to look at players like Stones and KdB who are just injured too often. Stones is the best defender England have ever produced and KdB is the best midfielder to have played in England. But they aren't fit enough and, in KdB's case, past their best.

I honestly think if Pep stays, we could see quite a few players coming and going. If we don't, and our rivals improve, we could find it VERY difficult next season.
 
GoatersLeftShin said:
The key question to all this is what happens with Pep's contract. If he doesn't want to carry on, it makes recruitment more difficult as players won't be as keen to sign for a club if they aren't sure who the new boss is.

My own personal feeling is that the team this season is weaker than it was last year and that it's cost us another treble.

Anyone who's not committed needs to go. If the rumours that Ederson is up for playing in Saudi, he needs to go and if Bernardo is still not wanting to stay we need to move him on too sadly. I'd be gutted if these 2 left as they've been magnificent for us.

We need to shift the ones who just aren't good enough (Nunes, Phillips, Gomez, Kovacic). We need to stop buying players who aren't good enough. Kovacic has been good at times but he can't be trusted to give Rodri a rest and he doesn't replace Gundogan either. He just doesn't influence games for me.

We need to look at players like Dias and Grealish who don't look like they are improving. These players just aren't essential players now - they've been overtaken and we're probably able to land a decent fee for them. I don't see Dias as being the player we bought and Grealish isn't a winger or midfielder - he's just not scoring enough, not creating enough or influencing games either.

Sadly, we need to look at players like Stones and KdB who are just injured too often. Stones is the best defender England have ever produced and KdB is the best midfielder to have played in England. But they aren't fit enough and, in KdB's case, past their best.

I honestly think if Pep stays, we could see quite a few players coming and going. If we don't, and our rivals improve, we could find it VERY difficult next season.
Click to expand...

Is this a clarkie? You've just named half the squad.
 
adrianr said:
Is this a clarkie? You've just named half the squad.
Click to expand...
Nope.

Not all of them will go, but we need to look at some of the players this year that have either underperformed for various reasons, got too injury prone etc.

If we'd had the same quality of squad as last season, we would've won another Treble I'm sure of that.
 
The problem with a larger squad change is that you'd lose a bunch of players who know how we play and replace them with a bunch of guys that need at least half a season to get up to speed. Even if they were all the right signings, we might still underachieve due to them not settling immediately, and then we get another thread like this asking for a bigger change, with the usual suspects calling the new players duds

We've been very privileged to be a highly successful team for the last 7 years. And when you have that level of success, you only ever need to refresh and rebuild. Move on the older players and those who want to go, and replace them with high potential players and experienced bargains. The rest of the squad can carry them to the point where their talent will make up for them not being fully bedded in

Our focus should be on adding exceptional quality where we can find it, and suitably replacing any players who want to leave

I suspect none of our players will be considered too old to be of use this summer
 
For the first team playing squad it will continue to be evolution not revolution with 3 out and 3 in.

Several of the 'squaddies' will probably move on to create space for the best of the academy youth.

We have numerous players out on loan and releases from the academy who will be sold ie THB £20m to Soton.

It will be interesting to see the clubs reaction to huge offers being made by Vincent for Grealish,Walker,Stones,KDB,Ake for example.
 
Given that 8 players who featured just two years ago (Laporte Mahrez Gundogan Sterling Zinchenko Sterling Jesus Cancelo) are no longer at the club, I would suggest that the rebuild is ongoing

The bigger concern is whether it dilutes the performance levels, as happened at Liverpool in the 90s or United post 2013.

Sooner or later we might finish 2nd or 3rd, but it won't be a disaster, albeit some idiots will think otherwise.
 
GoatersLeftShin said:
The key question to all this is what happens with Pep's contract. If he doesn't want to carry on, it makes recruitment more difficult as players won't be as keen to sign for a club if they aren't sure who the new boss is.

My own personal feeling is that the team this season is weaker than it was last year and that it's cost us another treble.

Anyone who's not committed needs to go. If the rumours that Ederson is up for playing in Saudi, he needs to go and if Bernardo is still not wanting to stay we need to move him on too sadly. I'd be gutted if these 2 left as they've been magnificent for us.

We need to shift the ones who just aren't good enough (Nunes, Phillips, Gomez, Kovacic). We need to stop buying players who aren't good enough. Kovacic has been good at times but he can't be trusted to give Rodri a rest and he doesn't replace Gundogan either. He just doesn't influence games for me.

We need to look at players like Dias and Grealish who don't look like they are improving. These players just aren't essential players now - they've been overtaken and we're probably able to land a decent fee for them. I don't see Dias as being the player we bought and Grealish isn't a winger or midfielder - he's just not scoring enough, not creating enough or influencing games either.

Sadly, we need to look at players like Stones and KdB who are just injured too often. Stones is the best defender England have ever produced and KdB is the best midfielder to have played in England. But they aren't fit enough and, in KdB's case, past their best.

I honestly think if Pep stays, we could see quite a few players coming and going. If we don't, and our rivals improve, we could find it VERY difficult next season.
Click to expand...
So that’s just -
Ederson
Bernardo
Nunes
Phillips
Gomez
Kovacic
Dias
Grealish
KDB
Stones

We entering a 5 a side league? We just won the league for the fourth team in a row and you want to get rid of 10 from the smallest squad in the league? Absolute madness
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Unread Posts

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top
✖
  AdBlock Detected
Bluemoon relies on advertising to pay our hosting fees. Please support the site by disabling your ad blocking software to help keep the forum sustainable. Thanks.