Whyte replaces Haks, Flores replace Samuelson and Crowley replaces Batty. Job done
Is cowley a ball winner and distributor?
I don't know much about him.
I'm working on 2 options per position.
Obvs Alfie is now 1 of a first choice centre back 3, with jordi gone and Festus crocked, our 4 CB's would be Burke, Greaves, Jones and McLoughlin with young Smith as backup. Makes sense.
2 keepers are Long (technically better keeper) and Ingram, who's let in a few soft ones recently, though Long needed time out for the battering he took back end of last season.
Emmanuel and Coyle RB. Elder and Fleming LB.
Defence sorted.
Smallwood and Batty as holding mids ( though Batts soon out of contract and Jones has been preferred, so there's a potential vacancy there of Batts goes out)
Doc and slater for the box-to-box role.
Honeyesta and now Flores for the no. 8/false 10 role.
Out wide we have KLP, Scott, Wilks and Whyte (asssumimg MS is on his way) with Mayer as backup whom the club seem to rate though he needs to be settled in.
No 9 we have Eaves and Josh, though we know Tom is out for the foreseeable, but there's a player in Tom if he can get consistently fit and he's more feared by oppositions than loved by his own fans, which for me is sad.
So for me, it looks like Samuelsen and Batts (sadly) might be off to make space for potentially another centre mid. But surely that CM would need to be a ball-winner/holding type.
And yes, the glaring cherry on the cake would be a No9 line-leader whom the ball would stick to, with both the ability to bring others into play and ideally a better conversion rate than we currently have...
So it really depends what kind of CM your lad from Brum is as to whether it's agent talk or a realistic prospective signing.
Either way, we need to prioritise a No9.
Batts will be a player who will come back to bite us but can't see has a future in the current setup.
