The Squad planning thread

Gabriel said:
It will be a season of transition but we should get over the loss of de Bruyne more easily. Cherki and Bobb are highly creative, and Reijnders offers an added goal threat. They’re also younger and more importantly fitter than de Bruyne. It’s time for the younger players to step up and lead, rather than be led, and for Guardiola to rotate more effectively.
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I agree. Kev was not what he was, and we have highly creative replacements.
I don't think that scoring goals will be any problem at all.
Rotating the central midfield will be more of an issue, for me, to ensure that we maintain the balance between high creativity and defensive solidity.
I am really excited to see what transpires, but Rodri fit, Stones fit, and Gonzalez being able to step into the CDM position is, for me, key.
 
oldius said:
I agree. Kev was not what he was, and we have highly creative replacements.
I don't think that scoring goals will be any problem at all.
Rotating the central midfield will be more of an issue, for me, to ensure that we maintain the balance between high creativity and defensive solidity.
I am really excited to see what transpires, but Rodri fit, Stones fit, and Gonzalez being able to step into the CDM position is, for me, key.
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As you say, the central midfield area has many options, but for me it remains one of the areas of concern, particularly in transitions.
 
robbieh said:
17 foreign players
Ederson
Akanji
Gvardiol
Alt Nouri
Khusanov
Nuñes
Dias
Gundogan
Bernardo
Kovacic
Rodri
González
Reijnders
Cherki
Haaland
Marmoush
Doku

I've left out Savinho as he appears to be off.
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Ake? ;)
Bobb?
 
Cheadle_hulmeBlue said:
It’s difficult to tell how good we will be next season. losing a player like KDB I think will have a huge effect on us. I know he was injured, but we often relied on him in the big games.

It might be a season of transition with so much squad rotation
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It will definitely be a season of transition.

Last season was a physical and mental comedown from the monumental efforts of winning 18 trophies in 8 years, winning something in each of the eight years, including a quadruple, two trebles and four doubles:

2017-18 Premier League, EFL Cup
2018-18 Premier League, FA Cup, EFL Cup, Community Shield
2019-20 EFL Cup, Community Shield
2020-21 Premier League, EFL Cup
2021-22 Premier League
2022-23 Champions League, Premier League, FA Cup
2023-24 Premier League, UEFA Super Cup, FIFA Club World Cup
2024-25 Community Shield

Last season you could see how much winning a fourth league title in a row took it out of the team. Physically, players were dropping lies flies; mentally, players were drained of their competitive spark and focus. It was also evident that our great team had come to its end and a rebuild was required.

We haven’t finished that rebuild yet. You could argue that it’s going to take until this time next year with two further transfer windows after this current one to see the transition of the older players from our great team leaving to bringing in and retaining the required standard of players to replace them.

We have a lot of young and inexperienced players who we have no idea how good they’re going to be and a lot of older players who will be leaving soon. The best teams often have the majority of their squad in their prime years (26-30) and younger and older players to supplement that, but we seem to have just a small chunk of the squad in their prime (just 9 of them). You’d probably want another 6 players aged 26-30. Instead we have a majority of the squad who are U24yo (13 of them).

That’s great for future years as they all come into their prime together, but it’s not ideal for the immediate term.

Plus we have areas of the pitch where we aren’t just stacked with players but also almost stupidly stacked with players (centre back we have 14 on the books, and central midfield we have 15 on the books… granted some will be loaned or sold), yet other areas where we are weak either in numbers or top end quality (right back and wings and we still only have one natural striker).

I am going into this season with no expectations on our team. I have no idea what we’re going to be, I have no idea how good most of our players are going to be, I have no idea if all these new signings are going to work together as a team and no idea how players coming back from injuries or poor seasons are going to be (whereas for the majority of those 8 years where we won 18 trophies, you knew exactly how good most of not all of our core team were going to be from Ederson to Kompany, Fernandinho DSilva DeBruyne BSilva Agüero then Dias Stones Aké Rodri Gündoğan Haaland etc.) … certainly for the next two seasons we will be a transitional team.
 
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Psychedelic Casual said:
I have bolded HG players. We just have the required 8, including Mukasa.

Anyone we sign must see a non-HG player sold or must be HG.
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Lewis and O'Reilly are both U-21 so don't need to be counted for either PL or CL squad
Mukasa is u-21 for PL and will become list B for CL at the end of Sept when he completes 2 years with us (although he can be shown as HG in CL squad until then)
 
Psychedelic Casual said:
It will definitely be a season of transition.

Last season was a physical and mental comedown from the monumental efforts of winning 18 trophies in 8 years, winning something in each of the eight years, including a quadruple, two trebles and four doubles:

2017-18 Premier League, EFL Cup
2018-18 Premier League, FA Cup, EFL Cup, Community Shield
2019-20 EFL Cup, Community Shield
2020-21 Premier League, EFL Cup
2021-22 Premier League
2022-23 Champions League, Premier League, FA Cup
2023-24 Premier League, UEFA Super Cup, FIFA Club World Cup
2024-25 Community Shield

Last season you could see how much winning a fourth league title in a row took it out of the team. Physically, players were dropping lies flies; mentally, players were drained of their competitive spark and focus. It was also evident that our great team had come to its end and a rebuild was required.

We haven’t finished that rebuild yet. You could argue that it’s going to take until this time next year with two further transfer windows after this current one to see the transition of the older players from our great team leaving to bringing in and retaining the required standard of players to replace them.

We have a lot of young and inexperienced players who we have no idea how good they’re going to be and a lot of older players who will be leaving soon. The best teams often have the majority of their squad in their prime years (26-30) and younger and older players to supplement that, but we seem to have just a small chunk of the squad in their prime (just 9 of them). You’d probably want another 6 players aged 26-30. Instead we have a majority of the squad who are U24yo (13 of them).

That’s great for future years as they all come into their prime together, but it’s not ideal for the immediate term.

Plus we have areas of the pitch where we aren’t just stacked with players but also almost stupidly stacked with players (centre back we have 14 on the books, and central midfield we have 15 on the books… granted some will be loaned or sold), yet other areas where we are weak either in numbers or top end quality (right back and wings and we still only have one natural striker).

I am going into this season with no expectations on our team. I have no idea what we’re going to be, I have no idea how good most of our players are going to be, I have no idea if all these new signings are going to work together as a team and no idea how players coming back from injuries or poor seasons are going to be (whereas for the majority of those 8 years where we won 18 trophies, you knew exactly how good most of not all of our core team were going to be from Ederson to Kompany, Fernandinho DSilva DeBruyne BSilva Agüero then Dias Stones Aké Rodri Gündoğan Haaland etc.) … certainly for the next two seasons we will be a transitional team.
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Agree with much of that but think it will be another year before this rebuild is ‘complete’. I say ‘complete’ because I don’t think the club will ever allow a squad to be built in such a manner again and that we’ll see greater churn each year.
 
Gabriel said:
Agree with much of that but think it will be another year before this rebuild is ‘complete’. I say ‘complete’ because I don’t think the club will ever allow a squad to be built in such a manner again and that we’ll see greater churn each year.
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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.
 
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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If we go down the road again of building a smaller squad of elite players who peak as a team in one season, then we know we can have great success. However, we also now know that the physical costs are huge and the drop off from that peak precipitous. The challenge we therefore have is building a squad that can see us consistently winning domestically, consistently reaching finals in Europe, and now challenging for the Club World Cup as well. That will only be achievable using a larger squad and refreshing more regularly.
 
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

1755002087036.png

1755002123267.png

1755002217581.png
 
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

View attachment 165697

View attachment 165698

View attachment 165699
Click to expand...
Think Echeverri is guaranteed to get a loan and suspect Akanji has to go somehow, if Sav did leave he'd almost certainly need a NHG replacement (presumably Rodrygo).
 
With an eye to down the line and the future departures of Stones and Ake, I was rather hoping we’d have kept a young central defender from inside this season. It would make their assimilation much easier if we’re facing similar problems with quotas next year.
 
Gabriel said:
With an eye to down the line and the future departures of Stones and Ake, I was rather hoping we’d have kept a young central defender from inside this season. It would make their assimilation much easier if we’re facing similar problems with quotas next year.
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Like Mbete or Callum Doyle , still with us.
 
Xhavenjoe said:
Like Mbete or Callum Doyle , still with us.
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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.
 
Psychedelic Casual said:
It will definitely be a season of transition.

Last season was a physical and mental comedown from the monumental efforts of winning 18 trophies in 8 years, winning something in each of the eight years, including a quadruple, two trebles and four doubles:

2017-18 Premier League, EFL Cup
2018-18 Premier League, FA Cup, EFL Cup, Community Shield
2019-20 EFL Cup, Community Shield
2020-21 Premier League, EFL Cup
2021-22 Premier League
2022-23 Champions League, Premier League, FA Cup
2023-24 Premier League, UEFA Super Cup, FIFA Club World Cup
2024-25 Community Shield

Last season you could see how much winning a fourth league title in a row took it out of the team. Physically, players were dropping lies flies; mentally, players were drained of their competitive spark and focus. It was also evident that our great team had come to its end and a rebuild was required.

We haven’t finished that rebuild yet. You could argue that it’s going to take until this time next year with two further transfer windows after this current one to see the transition of the older players from our great team leaving to bringing in and retaining the required standard of players to replace them.

We have a lot of young and inexperienced players who we have no idea how good they’re going to be and a lot of older players who will be leaving soon. The best teams often have the majority of their squad in their prime years (26-30) and younger and older players to supplement that, but we seem to have just a small chunk of the squad in their prime (just 9 of them). You’d probably want another 6 players aged 26-30. Instead we have a majority of the squad who are U24yo (13 of them).

That’s great for future years as they all come into their prime together, but it’s not ideal for the immediate term.

Plus we have areas of the pitch where we aren’t just stacked with players but also almost stupidly stacked with players (centre back we have 14 on the books, and central midfield we have 15 on the books… granted some will be loaned or sold), yet other areas where we are weak either in numbers or top end quality (right back and wings and we still only have one natural striker).

I am going into this season with no expectations on our team. I have no idea what we’re going to be, I have no idea how good most of our players are going to be, I have no idea if all these new signings are going to work together as a team and no idea how players coming back from injuries or poor seasons are going to be (whereas for the majority of those 8 years where we won 18 trophies, you knew exactly how good most of not all of our core team were going to be from Ederson to Kompany, Fernandinho DSilva DeBruyne BSilva Agüero then Dias Stones Aké Rodri Gündoğan Haaland etc.) … certainly for the next two seasons we will be a transitional team.
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Good post pal. I would add that while this new city team will take a couple of years to reach its prime we are still good enough to win things. Get Rodrygo I think we win this league.
 
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

View attachment 165697

View attachment 165698

View attachment 165699
Click to expand...
Savinho, Echeverri, Khusanov & Nypan are U21 for PL - which means that they do not need to be counted in the PL squad. Assuming Doyle, Wilson-Esbrand, Kabore, Phillips are not going to be included in PL squad - the PL squad can comply even if McAtee stays. The complications are in CL if players do not leave and the club do not want to omit players from CL squad who can still play in the PL. It is hard to se how even a new HG player can be brought into a squad that Pep already believes is too big.
 
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