You have to say Klich should be fav from these older players to be offloaded and will still make a healthy profit. Roberts is worth at least £7.5m, Shackeltons worth £2.5m, so between £15m/£20m just for those 3 and I would add Forshaw too who will have a value too. Thats 4 first team players offloaded meaning we need to replace them to get to the 18+4 policy. Cresswell would seem to be fav to be loaned out unless Struijk, Koch or Llorente are sold.
Forshaw signed a new 2 year deal In January Doc. Actually just checked and it's until summer 2023 with a one year option to extend.
If Eddie had never been on loan with us and I’d just been alerted today that we could have him for under £20m, watching that opening goal I’d be pretty excited
I want us to win a couple more because I’d like to also cheer on Burnley in their attempt to finish ahead of Everton. Derby and Lampard both relegated in the same season, it would take some of the disappointment away of how poor we’ve been. 1-1 now Chelsea Arsenal
Doc, certainly being an u21 player for England is a better indicator of success than the younger age groups but if you go back a few years to see how they have all done you’ll see there’s a mix of household name full England internationals… and a fair few who?’s … With the rest on a sliding scale in between. Drameh got his 1 cap in a friendly where the ‘b’ team lost to Georgia. He hasn’t made the bench for the qualifiers. he’s done great on loan at Cardiff and I’d suggest that would be a better indicator of his value… quality performances in the championship… than the fact that some other unrelated England u21s happen to be valued in the multi millions. my point was - half a season doing well in the champ as a 20 year old is very impressive. I’m sure he’s now worth a few quid and we would turn a very nice profit - but I don’t think there’s evidence that wakey’s £10m comment is derisory.
Just a thought. Seen lots of posts trying to flog/get rid of various players in the summer. Not sure we should be in such a hurry. Next January might be soon enough. Take rodrigo for example. Early days but so far he’s thriving under new regime. Who knows what improvement other players might make under different system. Worth having a look at firpo and Roberts before dumping them. I’d suggest three quality signings added to what we currently have might be enough for next season
To clarify my position. Bielsa had a small squad with an excessive amount of wingers. Marsch doesn't like playing with out and out wingers, they have to play narrower. I'm not sure James or Harrison can do that at this level. My opinion is that they are out and out wide men, especially James. There is a possibility that Raphinha and Rodrigo will leave. We need fresh central midfielders. Klich looks pedestrian. He's been great for us but he hasn't been good enough at this level and you can see the frustration within him. Maybe he needs to go. We then have Roberts who hasn't done it for us. Firpo hasn't cut it at LB. We need a new one. We have Koch, Struijk, Cooper, Llorente, Cresswell and Ayling who can play centre back. It's possible we could sell at least one of those, possibly two to free up funds. We desperately need at least one striker. To sum up. Different formation requires different players. Players drop off over time and we have failed to build strength in depth under Bielsa due to his insistence on a small squad. A big player turnaround is needed to freshen things up, play to our strengths and improve individual ability.
I agree. I don't think we're going to have the big summer clearout that some have been predicting. Some will go, admittedly, but most of them will be u16/18/23 lads who don't make the cut. That's us only just got rid of de Cock. 4 years of stealing a wage, was it? Loads of others too, like Costa presently. I think the club will retain some of the older players as insurance, to see how the new players fit in. January may be too soon to sell them all, but I'm sure if good offers came in, they'd be able to go them - or perhaps playing in the first team because the new players are all injured with muscle strains because JW hasn't trained them hard enough.
Re - our over-trained players.. it would be quite funny if the players rocked up to the first match next season looking like the love child of Jan molby and paddy kenny.
