With the possible sale of an homegrown and the purchase of a few non homegrown, we currently have 14 overseas players, with a maximum of 17 Goalkeepers (3) Lloris Friedel Gomes Defenders (3) Kaboul Vertonghen Assou-Ekotto Midfied/Wingers (6) Dembele Holtby Sandro Chadli Paulinho Capoue Forwards (2) Soldado Adebayor So we could bring in Coentrao, Lamela and Willian, but no more without selling Our 9 homegrown are Goalkeepers (0) Defenders (4) Naughton Dawson Walker Rose Midfied/Wingers (3) Lennon Siggurdsen Townsend Forwards (2) Bale Defoe To get the 3 overseas players we would have to lose 1 player (Bale looking likely). Only Ade I would imagine is likely to leave amongst our overseas players, so not much more room in our squad. Looks like Eriksen will have to wait.
This would easily be the best squad in my time: Goalkeepers (1 on pitch, duh) 1 Lloris 2 Friedel 3 Gomes Central defenders (2 on pitch) 4 Kaboul 5 Vertonghen 6 Dawson (HG) (Fryers) Right backs (1 on pitch) 7 Naughton (HG) 8 Walker (HG) Left backs (1 on pitch) 9 Rose (HG) 10 Coentrao Defensive Midfield (1 on pitch) 11 Sandro 12 Capoue Midfield (2 on pitch) 13 Dembele 14 Holtby 15 Paulinho (Carroll) Attackers (2 on pitch) 16 Lennon (HG) 17 Siggurdsen (HG) 18 Chadli 19 Lamela 20 Willian 21 Townsend (HG) Centre forwards (1 on pitch) 22 Soldado 23 Defoe (HG) (Kane) Out: Bale, BAE, Ade In: Willian, Lamela, Coentrao 8 home grown, 15 foreign Bit heavy on attackers and light on midfield/cf/central defence (if you strictly want 2 per position) but as "attackers" could cover up front (Willian for example) and Sig/Chad could also cover midfield. Capoue also covers centre back. That's my call
What I hadn't realised on the squad is that Eriksen and Lamela count as U21. So not taking one of the 17 places we have available to overseas players. Gives a bit more space!
Updated first post for Lamela's recruitment. Expecting a fair few changes over the weekend. Out: Assou-Ekotto, Adebayor In: Eriksen (21 in February, so not needed in 25), Coentrao
Eriksen now confirmed. Clever how we did our business while Chelsea were busy losing to Bayern. Shame that didn't happen 15 months ago, although if it had would Bale have stayed and would the other signings have happened? Be an interesting alternative universe!
So as it stand we have a first XI of this, probably: Lloris Walker Dawson Vertonghen Rose Paulinho Sandro Lamela Eriksen Chadli Soldado Subs: Friedel, Kaboul, Capoue, Dembele, Holtby, Townsend, Defoe. 2nd XI for the cups: Friedel Naughton Kaboul Chiriches Fryers Capoue Dembele Lennon Holtby Townsend Defoe Subs: Gomes, Veljkovic, Stewart, Bentaleb, Sigurdsson, Kane, Adebayor. Defence could do with one or two extra youngsters.
I like that line up, if we want to change it up a bit during the game then we can switch LaLa and Chad and play more traditional wingers (ie, left footer on left, right footer on right)
Squad numbers as published on the OS. Can someone explain why some players have different numbers for european matches. SQUAD NUMBERS 1 - Heurelho Da Silva Gomes - GOMES 2 - Kyle Walker - WALKER 3 - Danny Rose - ROSE 4 - Younes Kaboul - KABOUL 5 - Jan Vertonghen - VERTONGHEN 6 - Vlad-Iulian Chiriches - CHIRICHES - Premier League only 7 - Aaron Lennon - LENNON 8 - Jose Paulo Bezerra Maciel Jnr - PAULINHO 9 - Roberto Soldado Rillo - SOLDADO 10 - Emmanuel Adebayor - ADEBAYOR 11 - Erik Lamela - LAMELA - Premier League only 12 - Vlad-Iulian Chiriches - CHIRICHES - UEFA only 14 - Lewis Holtby - HOLTBY 15 - Etienne Capoue - CAPOUE 16 - Kyle Naughton - NAUGHTON 17 - Andros Townsend - TOWNSEND 18 - Jermain Defoe - DEFOE 19 - Mousa Dembele - DEMBÃLÃ 20 - Michael Dawson - DAWSON 21 - Nacer Chadli - CHADLI 22 - Gylfi Sigurdsson - SIGURDSSON 23 - Christian Eriksen - ERIKSEN 24 - Brad Friedel - FRIEDEL 25 - Hugo Lloris - LLORIS 28 - Thomas Carroll - CARROLL 29 - Jake Livermore - LIVERMORE 30 - Sandro Cordeiro - SANDRO 32 - Benoit Assou-Ekotto - ASSOU-EKOTTO 33 - Erik Lamela - LAMELA - UEFA only 35 - Ezekiel Fryers - FRYERS 37 - Harry Kane - KANE 41 - Shaquile Coulthirst - COULTHIRST 43 - Ryan Fredericks - FREDERICKS 46 - Simon Dawkins - DAWKINS 53 - Cameron Lancaster - LANCASTER 54 - Laste Dombaxe - DOMBAXE 56 - Jordan Archer - ARCHER 57 - Jonathan Miles - MILES 59 - Kevin Stewart - STEWART
Could it be because we've already used some number for players that have since left or in Chiriches case, he's already used a number at another club? When we registered a squad for the Europa Qualifier, Bale would've been 11 and Parker was 6, I think.
Will update this if any changes over the next month. Interesting to see how many were keen to see the back of Ade at the beginning of the season (me included). Probably less think this now.
Me too. Even up until the West Ham game where he made his comeback I was just begrudgingly saying play him due to the misfiring strikers situation but as of right now, he's probably the second name on the team sheet for me. First being Eriksen of course
Well Ade can thank Soldado for not delivering and Defoe being Defoe. His disciplinary issues during AVBs' reign are not wiped clean for me because he is putting a shift (I remember Steve Archibalds' final season at Spurs) .
