Perhaps someone who can cover in a few positions either further forward or in defence. As Martin suggested someone else was needed Charles (6 or 8) Downes (6 or 8) Smallbone (6 or 8 but not a solo 6) Alcaraz (8 or 10) Armstrong (8 or 10) So I’m not sure what role we’d want the extra one for assuming that is true. It does sort of seem like enough? This assumes Armstrong is staying as well. I expect most teams can’t cover his wages or won’t given his injury record. Perhaps someone with some height
It’s hard as you say as I’m sure most managers would like 2 players for every position, but if we sign someone now either they will become 6th choice or someone here will be pushed to 6th choice. Probably best to have someone like Doyle being that player, but potentially stunts his development if he barely plays. Guess it depends how much rotation we are planning. The 5 you’ve mentioned should all be able to do a job for a promotion chasing side, so if we were to sign another player in that mould we might just see the midfield change week to week to give them all plenty of playing time
Yep! Ditched their manager when needed to & replaced with better. Getting some excellent talent. If only ….
5 senior players covering 3 positions is thin in my view. We'd be a couple of injuries or suspensions away from needing Doyle or similar to play 90 mins. Not disastrous but not ideal. With Armstrong being so injury prone and yellow cards being given all over the place so far, I'd be very nervous. I suspect in an ideal world you'd be looking to add some experience to that. Take out S.Armstrong and it's extremely young. Maybe someone a little older who can add quality when called upon but not expected to play 40 games a season? A Lallana type (runs and ducks for cover)
The issue is that it would seem like a potential signing would be third (or sixth depending on how you look at it) choice. Since we aren’t going to be signing anyone that jumps ahead of most of those as they are either people we want to start or simply won’t be able to get better then. So who will join a championship side in that context? You are looking at either someone who can also play as one of the forward three and be moved back if needed (potentially McAtee? But he’ll have higher level interest but is an example). Or someone who can also play either central defence or full back or both. The Bristol City defender was rumoured to be such a type (RB, CB and DM). That way he has multiple chances to get into the team but if there is a crisis in midfield he can be moved there. That’s realistically the only way to go I expect Neither suggestions really meet the experience criteria mentioned but they were just examples. I assume there are others
I’ve not really considered him because I expect the hope is to get him out even if on loan due to his wages relative to his role in the squad. I expect he is maybe 3rd choice as an attacking midfielder behind Alcaraz and Armstrong.
“Play” is a strong word for what Aribo normally does. I would say “Aribo can meander around roughly where the number 10 position usually is”
I usually really like those types of players, Berbatov is probably one of my favourite players of all time Give me a lazy flair player who produces one in five games over some talentless **** who runs a lot any day, but yeah Aribo just looks ****
In the sense that they just walk around for most of the game? Yes In the sense that they are both good at football? No
Berbatov actually put effort in though despite his languid style so not really comparable. I reckon I've used up more energy in a single coke **** than he did in the entirety of last season.
