Start on the playing side and let Cedric, Pied, Hoedt, Clasie, Caillio, Gabbiadini, Austin & Boufal go as a minimum.
I really wouldn't let that many leave. I'd certainly keep Hoedt and Austin. And Gabbiadini if we can play to his strengths.
Feel for Pied...injured and the manager who brought him in left. Had few chances...not necessarily the quality we needed, but in different circumstances it might have worked out. Now he was a player who looked sad yesterday....had that faraway look when you are drinking in the atmosphere but don't belong.
Isn't Pied's contract up? As for players I would really want to keep, can't think of any tbh. The ones who I rate the highest (Lemina and Boufal) both haven't really found their feet here so wouldn't be massively bothered if they were to go. I am not suggesting sell the whole squad, just that for the first summer in a while I am not worried about who does go. Just need to get the recruitment right, especially at the back. Get a dominant centre back to play next to Hoedt and we will be OK.
Lemina can be the player we want...definitely want to keep him. Let's face it...it was a hard season to shine.
Top 6 will always be the same just in a different order season in season out,then it’s just down do the other 14 teams to how well their season goes because we are all of a muchness imo. One season a team will finish 7th,then the other season will finish 17th,it’s how it goes.
Do we have a strategy, though? It used to be a focus on the academy. And a goal to be in Europe annually. To play a press and quick, attacking football. Now it’s just kind of “We March On.” What does that even mean? One thing you can’t say about Cortese is that he didn’t have a vision. In the subsequent years we have explicitly walked back a lot of his goals and quietly ignored others. I don’t think this board has a vision. Or rather, I think they do but it doesn’t place a very high priority on winning.
