It's Quiet 17 - Glory Thread

samuelyeboah said:
But we have 3 players to take these minutes. Their names are erling haaland, Julian Alvarez and Cole palmer. Together they played like, 500 minutes last season?
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Thats fine if they can stay fit and adapt respectively.

Point still stands that 3 cams is not enough depth for the coming season imo. Yes foden and maybe grealish at a push could play there but they will be needed as left wingers next season as the squad currently stands. One injury to kdb, grealish, foden, gundogan or Bernardo and suddenly we are incredibly stretched
 
crossbar said:
Are we?

• CB's: Stones, Laporte, Dias, Aké (assuming he stays)
• Fullbacks: Walker, Cancelo, Zinchenko, Cucurella (assuming he arrives)
• Holding mids: Rodri, Phillips
• Attacking mids: Grealish, KDB, Bernardo, Gundogan
• Wingers: Alvarez, Mahrez, Foden, and possibly promoting Palmer?
• Strikers: Haaland, Alvarez

Stones can play right back if Walker/Cancelo gets injured.
Laporte can act leftback if problems at leftback. Same for Aké.
Gundogan can play holding mid if both Rodri and Phillips gets injured or need resting.
Grealish and Bernardo can both play in attacking frontline if we struggle with injuries.
If both Haaland and Alvarez needs a rest, we can play a false nine, which we have done for two years.

Pep has a plan with all of this. I wouldn't be worried. But after Sterling we need to keep our players, and get Cucurella. After that we should be okay.

Adding Serge Gnarby means we could might as well axe Cole Palmer since he would never get any game time.
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From what I’ve seen I’d be shocked if grealish plays cam over foden. Grealish has almost always played as a winger throughout his career and when both foden and grealish play foden is usually the one playing centrally.

You’ve put alvarez twice which if anything emphasises the point that the squad is one body short. Whether thats in cm or out wide is subjective but it’s still not enough options for the upcoming condensed season imo.
 
Just assume we’ll sign someone comfortable across the front 3. That will complete us in my opinion.
 
rice10 said:
I think it is a big shame losing Sterling, especially on top of Jesus as well.

At the beginning of the summer I saw it as Haaland replacing Aguero and Alvarez replacing Torres. I don’t think we needed to let either go for squad size purposes. But I appreciate that they wanted to leave the club.

As much as Sterling and Jesus are being talked of as squad players they started a hell of a lot of games, Sterling in particular played in as many if not more games than players we will be relying on this season and Gabby started all the big games.

My concern is that I truly believe that we should be aiming to win all 4 trophies this year. We have come close the last couple of years and the reason it all ends is when we get to the week of champions league - league - FA cup semi - champions league and our players have been run in to the ground and are dead on their feet or injured.

The squad size for this season is less than the last two seasons now so I foresee the same situation happening again.

I appreciate I am now moaning about the fact our squad might not be big enough for us to try and win all 4 trophies. Well you can blame Pep for that and his obscene consistency and genius raising my expectations to these levels!!
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How do we have a smaller squad than last year
 
DMA's said:
From what I’ve seen I’d be shocked if grealish plays cam over foden. Grealish has almost always played as a winger throughout his career and when both foden and grealish play foden is usually the one playing centrally.

You’ve put alvarez twice which if anything emphasises the point that the squad is one body short. Whether thats in cm or out wide is subjective but it’s still not enough options for the upcoming condensed season imo.
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I guess it was to show Alvarez can operate both as striker or winger, as Bernardo or Grealish could play on the wing or midfield. Point is many of our players are very flexible and could play practically anywhere which solves a lot of problems. I don't know but I think we should be fine this season. I still stand by us not needing another attacking player. We have Palmer as well.
 
DMA's said:
Sterling played in 47 games for us last season scoring 17 goals & gabby played in 41 games scoring 13 .

Obviously some of those appearances where as a substitute but that’s a hell of a lot of minutes to replace. Couple that with the World Cup in December and the tight fixture schedule I think it would be absolute madness not to bring in one attacking option.

The squad as it stands is two players too small imo. We need a full back and a cm or winger.

If we sign a winger it allows foden to play as a cam as I believe we are very light there with only gundogan, Bernardo and kdb as the current options.
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We could beat at least 60% of the teams in the Prem with MacAtee playing there...
 
No to Dybala for me. I think we are done once we sign Cucuarella. There are probably no realistic attacking targets available.
 
Long and short of it is that we need to replace Sterling. Alvarez can play across the front 3 but made his mark recently as a centre forward. Palmer, Mahrez, Bernardo and Grealish can play on the right but not one will try to go outside on the right. Every single one will cut in. On the left we have Foden and Grealish only. Grealish is another who doesn’t go outside.

Start of last season we had Torres, Sterling, Jesus, Mahrez, Grealish, Foden and Palmer. This season we have Haaland, Alvarez, Mahrez, Grealish, Foden and Palmer. So we have probably better quality but less options and arguably lots of similar players- 2 orthodox forwards, 2 left footed right wingers, one right footed left wing and one left footer who plays left but can play in the right.

Ultimately if we need a goal, one of this games against a parked bus, who do we have that’s different to change a game? That’s a big concern for me.
 
RayCTID said:
No to Dybala for me. I think we are done once we sign Cucuarella. There are probably no realistic attacking targets available.
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The club has shown they are more than happy to go with what we have and wait for the right player to become available. I much prefer them doing that and signing the correct player than panic buy any winger currently available.
 
Squad depth, assuming Cucurella joins:
Ederson (Ortega)
Cancelo (Walker) Dias (Stones) Laporte (Ake) Cucurella (Zinchenko)
KDB (Gundogan) Rodri (Phillips) Bernardo (McAtee)
Foden (Grealish) Haaland (Alvarez + Delap) Mahrez (Palmer)

Thats a phenomenal squad, and most of them are able to cover more than one position as well! People act like if starting Palmer instead of Mahrez would make our chances of winning drop from 90 to 50 %, thats laughable, he is a top class talent who Pep obviously believe in. This squad is stronger than the one who won the league last year in GK, defence, mid & attack, with a lot of potential within it to become even better. Pep dont want 2 world class players on every position since he thinks it makes it impossible to keep everybody happy which could lead to dressing room unrest. If this is our team this season we will win the league again, and perhaps a lot more than that!
 
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