I had it at £120m all in, but I suspect it won't matter. I'd anticipate that selling a few would mean bigger contract offers for some of those who remain. Even taking that worst case of a squad it's nice that the players we'd be looking for will be the 'cheaper' ones. I'd say we'd want three defenders, two midfielders and a winger added. Shouldn't need to spend all summer chasing strikers again. We'd have to go some to be spending more than £50m on them - and just think of the quality that we'd be talking with two £10m midfielders, a £10m winger and £20m spent on the defence. The other interesting challenge for the club is that when I look at that list of players, it seems like the best way forward may be for us to make a permanent switch to 4-4-2. Mayenda will need to be a starter next season and Isidor isn't being dropped. To me, EM should be allowed to play in his best position rather than being shoehorned in on the wing. That will then have a knock-on for what type of midfielder we need. Two run-all-day, 6 foot monsters please, Speakers!
Aye, you look at Esteve and Rodon both around the £8m mark I think and they’re 2 of the best CB’s in the league as is Meps. That’s serious money at this level and for us to be able to potentially bring in 3 or 4 of them and potentially being to attract players who’ve played at a higher level with a few others to fill out the squad.. that would be massive. I think we’re in a really strong position. 4-4-2 is becoming rarer and rarer because of how physical the games becoming imo, 2 midfielders trying to go toe to toe with 3 is really difficult as you say you’d need physical monsters in the middle and even then it’s hard not to get overran. Then when we step up into the PL it’ll be harder again. Strange really because iirc Samed had the best running numbers in ligue 1 a few seasons ago so that could be him but he’s looked quite sluggish in the few games he’s played. Has missed a fair period mind. Mayenda deserves more time on the pitch for sure really unlucky not to be playing. Speaking of the step up into the PL though I was thinking last night that we seem to struggle to break teams down at times yet we’re good against the teams who come out and play. RLB’s only managerial experience was at Lorient who were going into every match as underdogs so could just be a learning curve for him. If we were to go up I’d imagine he’d look forward to being the underdog again.
Agree I can't see 442 being permanent. The 433 we have will be a lot more impactful once we have mundle and watson back
If we dont go up we'll end up with a very decent wedge which will enable us to compete with the parachute payments of the teams coming down. Might enable us to have a right good go next year. In an ideal world none of this matters as we get promoted and keep hold of our better players - even if for just 1 more season in the premier league.
40 million to start, under 20 worth tuchel looking at him, (next set of brothers to play in same England match) family name always goes a long way and finally the lad has been more than brilliant this season. Goes with my blessing to become a superstar
Doubt he'll end up at Spurs or Palace if he does leave in the summer. His family haven't done too bad a job planning his brother's career and they'll have a mindset of clubs who would be the next level for Jobe
Tbf I don’t think Palace would be a bad move, probably one of the only PL teams he’d play regularly for that won’t be in danger of getting trounced every week. Spurs would be awful like.
Even worse case theres no way we lose all of them mind. Jobe will be away and maybe rigg you’d think. But we wouldnt sell all of them you named
I think just those 2 leaving is our best case scenario to be honest. We take £50m easily and have to replace 1 nailed on starter plus another that’s not really essential to our Xl at the min.
Aye they will go youd think but we wont also sell ballard, hume, neil, watson, cirkin. Hopefully we go up and they all stay anyway!
Neil, Cirkin and Watson will all be into the last year of their contracts, they hold all the cards if the want a move to the Prem. Also, if there’s genuine interest in the others that meets our valuation of them and they want to go then we won’t obtusely block the moves. It’s a part of the design and selling point of the model, you can’t stand in the way of individuals’ progress as you’ll deter the next batch of great prospects from joining.
Fail to go up and I'd expect us to lose Jobe 20m, Neil 12m, Ballard 8m Hume 10m, Watson 8m and Cirkin 8m due to his injury record. I'd be happy to see what Speakman and Harvey could do with 66m. My main concern would be that Speakman may think it's ready for the next step up at a Prem team