The Squad planning thread

Saddleworth2 said:
Is it a coincidence that two players who have put in superior performances recently are also our youngest and newest, Reiss and Khusanov. Pep has trusted Khusanov because he had no choice and that trust has been repaid so far. i would like to see Pep trust youth far more. Everechi introduced sooner rather than later to give the midfield/attack a fresh boost. I would also like to see O'Reilly partnering Gonzalez and Bobb played regularly as soon as he is fit to do so. Youth, legs, ambition, bravery and pace will go far.

Ederson
O'Reilly
Reiss
Khusanov
Guardiol
Gonzalez
Everechi/McAtee
Marmoush
Savinho
Halland
Bobb/Doku

Risky but would certainly build for the future.
Click to expand...
I think we’ll have. Very young team next season the oldest regulars are probably going to be Dias and Rodri. Stones, Akanji, Ake, maybe KDB and Gundogan will probably stiil be part of the squad for another year but think those you’ve named plus Foden and maybe 3 /4 summer additions will all be under 26.
 
For me we’ve spent quite a bit of money in January and I’m not sure any of the signings have really improved us or pushed us on to the next level.

The young players look good, but we won’t see their true potential for a few years.

If you compare our current starting 11 to the one that won the treble were miles off it.
 
Cheadle_hulmeBlue said:
For me we’ve spent quite a bit of money in January and I’m not sure any of the signings have really improved us or pushed us on to the next level.

The young players look good, but we won’t see their true potential for a few years.

If you compare our current starting 11 to the one that won the treble were miles off it.
Click to expand...
Obviously, it took a few years to build to that treble, and will take a few years to rebuild a new team to be possible treble winners again. Just like we won trophies on the first journey this young team we are building can win trophies on the next part of journey. Will they win a treble who knows, trebles are rare for a reason.
 
I’m still not sure about any of our wingers either. They are all young and inconsistent. They all divide opinion.

Output just isn’t really there with any of them.

Olise was right there btw.
 
Saddleworth2 said:
Is it a coincidence that two players who have put in superior performances recently are also our youngest and newest, Reiss and Khusanov. Pep has trusted Khusanov because he had no choice and that trust has been repaid so far. i would like to see Pep trust youth far more. Everechi introduced sooner rather than later to give the midfield/attack a fresh boost. I would also like to see O'Reilly partnering Gonzalez and Bobb played regularly as soon as he is fit to do so. Youth, legs, ambition, bravery and pace will go far.

Ederson
O'Reilly
Reiss
Khusanov
Guardiol
Gonzalez
Everechi/McAtee
Marmoush
Savinho
Halland
Bobb/Doku

Risky but would certainly build for the future.
Click to expand...
That is a very average side. Villa and Brighton have more quality
 
Shazza458 said:
I’m still not sure about any of our wingers either. They are all young and inconsistent. They all divide opinion.

Output just isn’t really there with any of them.

Olise was right there btw.
Click to expand...
Olise was and we could've also kept Palmer, but that's the gamble!

I'm not giving up on Doku and certainly not Savinho yet, plus we have Bobb to come back in too. They have all shown flashes but they're all young and still need time to develop.

One of the big problems is lack of bodies in the box and they need to work to get themselves free once they get there. I luv Erling, but some of his positioning and movement in the box isn't good enough.
 
blueparrot said:
Obviously, it took a few years to build to that treble, and will take a few years to rebuild a new team to be possible treble winners again. Just like we won trophies on the first journey this young team we are building can win trophies on the next part of journey. Will they win a treble who knows, trebles are rare for a reason.
Click to expand...
i think our best football and most exciting one was the 100 point season team. Better line-up from Pep and a bit more luck we could have won the cl also.
 
blueparrot said:
Obviously, it took a few years to build to that treble, and will take a few years to rebuild a new team to be possible treble winners again. Just like we won trophies on the first journey this young team we are building can win trophies on the next part of journey. Will they win a treble who knows, trebles are rare for a reason.
Click to expand...
I agree in part. The young players need time to develop, but will the club and the fans accept not winning trophies for a few years?

For me the overall quality of our signings since the treble season have been declining. I’m not sure many of them would make the bench of that season to be honest.

Looking back at us signing players like Laporte, Alvarez and Mahrez - our recent signings don’t come anywhere near that quality in my opinion. Maybe we should be questioning our transfer dealings?..
 
Cheadle_hulmeBlue said:
I agree in part. The young players need time to develop, but will the club and the fans accept not winning trophies for a few years?

For me the overall quality of our signings since the treble season have been declining. I’m not sure many of them would make the bench of that season to be honest.

Looking back at us signing players like Laporte, Alvarez and Mahrez - our recent signings don’t come anywhere near that quality in my opinion. Maybe we should be questioning our transfer dealings?..
Click to expand...
Will they fuck, look at them meltdown over being 4th lol.
 
Looking at the makeup of the squad now , we have 18 foreign players of which Reis wasn’t registered for the champions league

Assuming he is for next season , we would need to loose at least 1 player from this group , with the favourites being De Bruyne and Ederson

I think both will leave , which gives us 1 spare foreign spot - it looks like this will be taken by Cambiaso

This would then mean Walker would be departing in the summer with Cambiaso able to cover off left and right back but also able to invert if needed

I think the only other player to leave would be Grealish , problem is he is homegrown , association trained

If none of the other players leave we could only replace De Bruyne, Grealish and Ederson with homegrown players

The only way to find any flexibility on this is to sell some of the foreign lads

Will be very interesting to see if we do that this summer , it’s totally against our usual MO of allowing players to complete their contracts unless they are causing issues in the squad

Who has the final say , Viana or Pep - could it be a cause of friction going into next season?
 
Charlesfarsbar said:
Looking at the makeup of the squad now , we have 18 foreign players of which Reis wasn’t registered for the champions league

Assuming he is for next season , we would need to loose at least 1 player from this group , with the favourites being De Bruyne and Ederson

I think both will leave , which gives us 1 spare foreign spot - it looks like this will be taken by Cambiaso

This would then mean Walker would be departing in the summer with Cambiaso able to cover off left and right back but also able to invert if needed

I think the only other player to leave would be Grealish , problem is he is homegrown , association trained

If none of the other players leave we could only replace De Bruyne, Grealish and Ederson with homegrown players

The only way to find any flexibility on this is to sell some of the foreign lads

Will be very interesting to see if we do that this summer , it’s totally against our usual MO of allowing players to complete their contracts unless they are causing issues in the squad

Who has the final say , Viana or Pep - could it be a cause of friction going into next season?
Click to expand...

I’m sure Viana and Pep will work together but it will hopefully benefit us that Viana and Pep will be more of a professional relationship than a family type?
 
Looking to next season, we buy who we want/need in the summer if 95% of the teams set up sitting in no interest in coming out it be another season of hard slug! Being a possession side now is harder to win games even from 1/2 seasons ago. Slott come in and mixes it up more than pep he sat in against us because he knew that's the best way to play us, other games they keep possession dominate games to win!

What pep can do more is when we break break quickly stop this stopping at the halfway line then pass it back kill the game start again!
 
Cheadle_hulmeBlue said:
I agree in part. The young players need time to develop, but will the club and the fans accept not winning trophies for a few years?

For me the overall quality of our signings since the treble season have been declining. I’m not sure many of them would make the bench of that season to be honest.

Looking back at us signing players like Laporte, Alvarez and Mahrez - our recent signings don’t come anywhere near that quality in my opinion. Maybe we should be questioning our transfer dealings?..
Click to expand...

I think it's right to question our dealings and it's fair to have concerns.

We've always looked to balance good young players with high potential and more experienced, proven quality that have been expensive but less risky.

If you look at the key players in our treble squad you can see that blend.

Ederson, Dias, Stones, Rodri, De Bruyne, Bernie were all 22-24 when we signed them and Walker, Ake, Akanji, Gundo, Mahrez, Grealish all in the 25-27 bracket.

We've not bought well at all. The players we've brought in to the club who should be ticking the "proven" box simply haven't been good enough - and quite obviously so. Phillips and Nunes had been nothing more than "solid". Phillips had been good for England but didn't have any experience at the top level with Leeds. Similarly, Nunes had been a promising youngster who hadn't done anything brilliant at Wolves.

Contrast that to signing Mahrez, a key player for Leicester who had won the player of the season. Or Gundogan who had been in the CL final and won things with Klopp at Dortmund. It's a staggering drop off in who we decided to target. We were rumoured to be looking at Bellingham, and regardless of whether you like him or not, he's the level of player we should be expecting if we want to stay at the top.

We've now gone and signed some new players in the young promising category - and they look good. Marmoush hasn't got the experience to be able to say he's a "proven" quality player but hopefully he delivers. We need more in that category this summer and we'll be right back where we need to be.

Rodri remains a huge missing piece of the jigsaw. His return will fix a lot of the issues, but we need to make sure it doesn't crumble if he's injured again.
 
Think I'll just draw a line under the signings up to Jan and go from there.

We know where we are, what we need/want and where we wanna be. I've no issue with the 4/5 players signed tbh.

No one bought or rumoured has made me go 'really him?', all have at least 'ok fine I can see (if they use him here), he brings XYZ with more upside than down. The only targets we don't see to have leaked/rumoured yet are the 'older' 25/27 range but I suspect they'll come later when the season is over.

Still optimistic from the names around so far. (still not sure what the mad bastard has in mind for system or makeup though tbh) presume it'll be the usual 'get all the toys, tinker till xmas and then you're my guys for a run-in'
 
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