I’d think if we’d have had Cooper, Adams and Sini fit all season we’d have stayed up but we still had glaring holes in certain positions like LB, RB and GK which you can’t get away with in the PL.
Haven’t seen Drameh play in the championship but heard he did well in his loan spell but also was part of a very good Luton side, championship is a different beast to the PL and Drameh looked out of his depth when he played but still can’t understand the decision to buy Kristensen unless he was a world beater because surely it’d have been better to have Drameh as an understudy to Ayling after the first loan spell. Not sure that Drameh would’ve made much of a difference though because PL wingers are the best in the world. Would be nice to have him next season and keep Ayling for the squad/rotation but don’t think it’ll happen with how he’s been treated and we have Ayling and Kristensen who I think will probably both stay unfortunately.
Need to get a DOF and manager sorted asap because that will hold off potential signings and we need an identity and decide what the new manager wants to keep etc. I think Greenwood might be a useful squad player but as a 10 not a CM as he’s just not a CM. Bate can be sold as he’s been playing in a relegation threatened league one side.
Agree about the stadium, it’s a not starter. A lot of buildings/stadiums are bought by companies and leased back to teams/businesses. It’s really common in business and quite rare for a business not to rent it’s premises and to own it outright. He’s also not used it as security so it doesn’t matter, even if he did it doesn’t really mean anything or matter unless he went bankrupt.
Yeah Rodrigo will be off but hopefully we can recoup a decent fee for him. Hoping that Cresswell will want to stay as I think he’d be good alongside Cooper or Wober, both of which I think we’ll be able to keep.
Also, if James wants to stay and fight for his place let him and good on him. Always gives his best and I don’t really think we’ve actually given him a good chance, first season playing out of position he got 8 goal contributions and then we shipped him out. Get him playing right wing again like he did at Swansea, been played out of position by everyone else since.
For me I think a realistic 22 we’ll have next season will be;
GK - Robles / New
LB - New (Cresswell is a free agent from West Ham, would be a great addition) / Firpo (don’t think anyone will want him) or Hjelde (hopefully we can get rid of Firpo and have Hjelde for the squad)
CB - Wober / Cooper
CB - Cresswell / Kristensen
RB - New (Ryan Manning free agent) / Ayling (Think Drameh will leave)
CM - Gyabi / Gray
CM - New / Forshaw (pay when you play contract)
LM - Gnoto / Dallas
CAM - Rutter / Greenwood
RM - James / Costa
ST - New / Joseph or Perkins
Would love to keep Adams but think he’ll go. James and Gnoto could also go but sounds like James wants to stay and we’re trying to keep hold of Gnoto but I would prefer Sinisterra over Gnoto but think he’ll be off, way too good for the championship even despite his injury record, would be good for someone who has a decent squad.
For new CM and ST I’d go all out to get Hamer and Gyokeres although I think the latter will have PL offers but we will be able to offer first team football and could say if we don’t go back up first year you can have a release clause or something?
