All good. Mostly just gentle pisstaking at the endless stream of 'well you're not a professional so I'm gonna trust the club thankyouverymuch' posts tbh In the interests of transparency, here's my working. And that is with me assuming that we shift or abandon absolutely every one of the ones that are on the fringes. 24 outfielders sharing 38k minutes. GK New Patterson Moore D Hume Cirkin Huggins O'Nien Ballard Seelt Reinildo New New M Neil Rigg Sadiki Diarra ELF New AM Mundle Roberts Adingra Talbi New New F Mayenda Isidor New
One nagging concern I have is we are assuming we can offload a lot of players easily. Might be harder to offload than it is to buy in some ways. My sense is a lot will be loans as an insurance for next season. Getting them into the right environment is crucial. Then we will want wages covered you would imagine with PSR. Then there are some on the list we will simply want gone, but them finding a home with the money they get here might be a challenge. I think we may well end up with a few we dont want. As an aside. Does anyone know if we have a loans manager in the club. We are getting to the stage where one would be helpful.
Fair post, I defo think we can rotate enough to give the lads minutes and i'd rather have good depth and risk having one or two who might leave in 26/27 rather than not sufficient depth who end up having to fill in when our inevitable injury crisis rolls around haha
Well Le Fee and Diarra are certainly two of them. Based on what we seen last season I’m not Rigg is quite ready to be starting, he should be a massive player off the bench though. I guess it’s whether or not he thinks Neil is good enough to step up. It’s got the fanbase divided. I’d personally like one more in that’s undeniably better and has plenty of football at a higher level, either Xhaka or Henderson would’ve done for me. A player of that ilk.
The whole Neil or Sadiki debate might be moot come 16th August anyway if Neil hasn't signed a contract. That's the thing I'm most surprised about this window. If somebody had told me after the playoff final we'd get to 21st July with nobody signing a new contract, I'd have said they were fools.
I get the argument and appreciate where you're coming from. Spending good money but not having it on the pitch for over 2000 minutes seems like a waste. 7 x 2000 is 14000 so it's not miles over 11-12000. Then there are cup games to add in. Add in when players have knocks or suspensions then those players aren't going to be unhappy about not playing in those times. Several had knocks last season but had to play through them for the team - Jobe for instance.
Yeah that's probably what I would have, I think we will have a squad of 25/26 this summer I hate that argument, just because we aren't professional doesn't mean we can't share our views eh You've made cracking points tbf and some I totally agree with. I think thr Leicester lad could be a special player and he could be a class AM, add him to Diarra Sadiki Le Fee Neil and Rigg and we are set in CM imo. I do think Neil might be off but just a gut feeling so he will then be replaced by a CDM type
Maybe I'm being glass half empty, but the worst case scenario is one where we don't get enough minutes into some of them and they want to leave, we don't get enough into others so they don't retain their value - and then we go down anyway!
Def won't be easy, the only thing is we don't have players on huge wages to ship out so that'll help I reckon a few might get released this summer if no offers are on the table The loans are the key, need good environments to kick on
Fair enough, I am sure he is a good player. I dont think the Belgian league is a barometer for the premier league and I would be apprehensive of throwing them all in at once. We have to be really careful not to isolate so many new very young lads in a whole new experience for them. For me anyway.
Don't worry mate. Keep calm. A long way to go, and a lot of quite smart people on the case. All is well.
The overwhelming point for me if RLB is firmly embedded in the conversations about who to bring in, and is the person who has to manage the squad and their expectations. Me saying if he wants it I'll back him isn't me dismissing valid views of fans. It's me saying that he's the one who's problem it is so he's the one who gets the benefit of the doubt.
Aye same. Im absolutely buzzing with how much early business we have done and how impressive it seems but i thought we’d have had contract renewals by now im guessing the club will have it all in hand though
I wonder if we would even announce them, ones with long deals already might have just gotten a pay rise
loads of them apparently had promotion uplifts built in, so there will definitely have been lots of changes. Just would have expected a few more extensions for the obvious candidates.
Aye cup games help, but a bad draw can kill that dead so it isn't the most reliable. And while there's only a 2k difference between the available minutes and the demand, that amounts to the minutes of a whole extra 'regular contributor'. Also it's worth remembering that 2k is the floor in this scenario. We'd expect a player who has a real impact to take closer to 3k - and we certainly hope we have a few of those next season!
I'd really like to see some outgoings in the next week or so. Think that will make it more clear to see where incomings will fit.