Blono nails it. If Kriatenson signs we have him and Aaronson starting most likely and that means Ayling and Dallas as subs if we still have them. 2 real subs which means the team has been improved. Window not open yet and already we have improved. Lets see what happens but my guess is there will be some outs and more ins and we cannot be worse than last season
I think that's the problem with some people's thinking. They think that cos we've got a paper thin squad we need to add to it and not sell. We need to fund this spending spree somehow. This is why I'm happy with a cash plus player deal as it pads the squad out and gives us some cash to spend.
There's middle ground here. Squad was too small, which was obvious last year with an injury crisis, but... how much too small given the injury crisis was an extreme year? IF over-training was a factor... how much would we expect none-impact injuries to improve this year? Wnat is an optimal squad size? Factors for considerations: - after 4 years of bielsball what do the core older guys have left in their legs. Impossible to predict from the outside but the management team will have an idea what their fitness levels are like... what their resistance to injury and recovery from it will be like is harder to predict - the championship winning team, were a 'team' where the whole was greater than the sum of the parts... so its reasonable to talk about improving in their individual positions but also fair to say that the cooper, dallas, ayling and more have been brilliant for us and would remain worthy squad members - the unknown status of departures of raph, kp and harrison... and some others we may not know about - room for the kids to grow? We can't complain about them not having opportunities... and then demand new players in their positions. But the club needs to decide from the ones we want to keep - who's squad ready for this season and who's a loaner - marsch is known to rotate squad... certainly more than bielsa ever did, but how much will this satisfy demands for game time? - existing players not really suited to marsch' preferred system? It's not a straightforward call. If we have the finances my view is you strengthen in the places we are obviously short and if we're entertaining the idea of selling the 'in-demand' assets, we ensure we have replacements for the 3 who we might let go... and only let them go when we either have or are confident of having replacements. Then from a position of strength towards the end of the window we trim down the squad and make decisions on whether some of the existing squad is surplus or, especially with the younger guys, needs loaning out. Good to see us trying to do business early. It's easier said than done though as the players you want are often only available after the selling club has secured a replacement themselves.
Great post and common sense. We can all talk about our players going out on loan for experience, but we have had little success so far. Edmondson et al have been utter garbage at multiple loer league clubs. The best so far has been Alfie but in L1. Caprile is highly regarded in Italy with Seria A clubs chasing him. Bogutsz latterly but got injured, Poveda but got injured, Davies but got injured and Drameh superb. So only the very best of academy players will make it at top level. We sold Huggins and Casey but neither have made it yet, although Huggins was awesome before a nasty injury killed his season. players expected to succeed are Cresswell, Summerville, Bate, Greenwood, Gelhardt, Drameh, McGurk and Fernandez, but as Milky says who stays as part of the first team squad, who bets sold or loaned out?
According to the spanish site I am following on Brazil have lined up as a 4-2-2-2 Maybe jesse does know something?
Just checked and it looks like Brazil play Argentina on Saturday. Just a little kick about between friendly rivals with absolutely no chance of anyone getting injured there though
We won’t be signing a CB. It’s just lazy column-filling journalism and I can’t believe I’ve just wasted one minute of my life posting this, stating the bleeding obvious Let’s try and have some at least more credible rumours.
