So, is everyone happy going with the 18+4 squad (isn’t this a smaller squad than Bielsa’s) considering the complaints about how our small numbers have hampered us this season?
Not really. I think it's plausible but not in one window with this squad. Too many of the 18 are not to PL standard and if Cresswell, Gelhardt, Greenwood, Struijk, Shackleton and Summerville are to be promoted to the 18 next season we will be massively inexperienced. We'd also need to ship too many out to accommodate these. It will be interesting to see how we go about it.
How could anyone be happy with a pathetically small squad like that but has it anything to do with the manager or is that what he was told we can afford and is that what Bielsa was also told. Three or four early injuries and it’ll be the same moaning all over again about us being the unluckiest team in the pl. if we go with a tiny squad then we’ll be playing Russian roulette again
18 proper first team players backed by 4 very good U23s yes, but as you rightly say a bunch of 30yo+ and a bunch of kids doesnt leave much room for a new left back, 2 top midfielders and a striker…. Im afraid we need to be looking at doing it after the coming season
Exactly, it was put out there that Bielsa insisted on his (I believe was 18+6) and heavily criticised for it but we’re going smaller. Maybe because of events over the past two years I’ve gone full conspiracy theorist but sudden talk of overtraining causing injuries, which means we cut that out, we don’t even need a squad as big as this season next year
It won’t continue to work. We’ve gotten lucky this season in that there were two useless outfits at the bottom who were as good as gone after a few weeks. Left only one relegation spot. We’d better hope the lot getting promoted are as a bad as Norwich and Watford. Luckily I suspect they are as the gap between the two divisions is now colossal
Forest 4 pts behind Bournemouth as it stands with 20 mins + 4 games to go. Forest go to Bournemouth 2nd last game too.
Newcastle up to ninth now as steady eddie howe has saved them like a certain poster on here said he would.
He did spend £100m too i January and his new Brazilian has scored in his last 4 starts. I do agree though that Howe knows his stuff and I actually said on here I wish he would have spent his last few months out of work coaching under Bielsa and then taking over. I also wanted him in charge of England instead of Southchin
Well we are only 89 goals different to man city. They are plus 59 and us minus 30.back to reality eh?.
I think the biggest problem with the small squad we have is a lack of quality replacements. For example, Bamford has missed most of the season. Who can replace him? Rodrigo failed. Roberts isn't good enough. Joffy has been in and out injury wise. James can't do it. In short we have nobody of similar quality to back up Bamford. We've had to make do. Another would be midfield. When there is no Phillips we have had to turn to Struijk and Koch to step in. Two centre halves! Looks like Shackleton isn't trusted, Klich failed playing deep. In order to run the 18+4 squad we need equally talented players on the bench so we can chop and change (in theory) without weakening the first XI. Roberts, Shackleton, Greenwood, Klich and Co make us so much weaker when they get a start. We need to be ruthless and sell these guys and replace them with players who have the ability to break in to the first team. We have a ****load of centre backs and a ****load of wingers. We have one LB, one RB, one striker and we haven't signed a central midfielder for years. The squad needs upgrading but more importantly balancing up. Some of the kids verging on breaking through to the first team might need signing on to longer contracts and then sending out to gain experience. This summer, the squad needs padding out, not culling completely.
When you look at the table you just know that all the teams from 9th down to 17th are all much the same in quality. We just need to improve the quality of a few players and hope Marsch knows what hes doing and hey presto you get Wolves of ghis season compared to Wolves of last season
This.... if Bamford and Phillips had remained fit we'd certainly have more points on the board. Or...as mentioned above...we had adequate replacements. It's no surprise that two teams that finished 9th and 10th last season have had the worst injury absences this season are now battling for survival. (Us and Everton). Hopefully we can survive, strengthen the bench and first team and avoid injuries next season.
But that’s the point. Anymore than anyone else we won’t avoid injuries. What we can do is plan properly for when we get them
Agree. Marsch said himself that he takes great pride in keeping his players injury free. Hope that turns out to be true and we get a bit more luck with the freaky ones. If recruitment is right we should have better cover anyway.
