For me priority - Right center midfield player. Our current options for RCM are - Willock and Longstaff. Willock is at best an impact sub at this level. Longstaff is just not good enough. Decent covering CM when everyone is injured, but would be behind Shelvey right now. And when Shelvey gets back I don't have faith in him as first choice. Maddison - (12 goals and 12 assists last season). Can play RCM or LCM, also can play RM or RW. So if ASM or Almiron get injured, we have back up for the wing as well. Another winger As good as Almiron has been recently, I'm not comfortable with ASM + Almiron first choice with Fraser and Murphy back up. ASM is injury prone. A back up striker? Wilson injury prone, Isak injured, and Wood our only consistent fit option. I don't think Isak is injury prone, we've just been unlucky with him, he usually plays a good amount of games. But Wilson is injury prone and Wood is not good enough. I'd sell Wood for 12-15m and buy a decent, consistent back up. A defensive midfield player? I sometimes like the idea of having an out and out CDM and allowing Bruno to play further forward in some games.
Diaby, Maddison and a backup striker. If we get that in Jan, top 6 is not out of the question for me like.....especially if we can keep the likes of ASM, Bruno, Tripps and Botman fit for the remainder of the season thereafter.
For me, Diaby in 1st, Maddison in 2nd and then a LW for when ASM is injured. This experiment of Murphy, Fraser being back up wingers is not working.
Maddison priority for me, dissappointed that we just made a few bids in the summer and twatted around instead of paying what they wanted. Thankfully though with Leicester being utter dogshit right now, I'm sure he's keen to come here. Back up winger for ASM, his injury record ain't great, and Fraser really ain't first choice for a stand in.
Basically, if we're stepping up to the next level, all member of the first XI need to be consistent performers and characters - if you look at City, Liverpool, Man U in the 90s,Arsenal in the early 2000s etc, teams like that, the whole team was top players, with no one carried by the other players. We have Bruno, Trippier, Botman, Joelinton, Pope, Isak and ASM who I'd class as that level atm, but we need upgrades on the likes of Longstaff, Fraser, Burn and Wood.
How much is Diaby? I'm slightly reticent to signing another Moussa tbh after how the last one worked out.... We def need a small and nippy player like him, we're almost all giants right now.
Agree, but we need a concrete plan B though, as I can see Leicester playing hard to keep him. They finally and reluctantly parted with Fofana for over £80m, so it's not going to be easy getting Maddison.
I think he really wants to come here tbh, plus they put a £60m tag on him in the Summer, so we can negotiate around there. Leicester are appalling right now and show no signs of improving, plus they've got nafff all money, and whenever any player does any good there, they're sold immediately... not exactly much to make him stick around there tbh.
Yeah, I can imagine he might want out, it's morr whether Leicester play silly buggers about the price. Also, if they do look like showing signs of letting him go, then we won't be in a 1 horse race.
Disagree (mainly). Go out and get starters and position them to compete with those who already hold the spot. Then you are more efficiently driving up the quality of the squad. Having said that if we get into some form of European competition it creates a whole new challenge. It's been proven time and again that teams who have not been regulars in Europe really struggle to resource all comps effectively.
We can get 4/5 very good players for same price as Maddison and Diaby. Once our squad is at a certain level then we can push on for the ‘purple’ players
i think we will add another 2 or 3 in Jan, with one or two being around the £30-40m mark. I can’t speak for Howe and his plans but a more DM type player to allow Bruno to push would be my choice, like Bellingham (but obviously not Bellingham). Ahead of that is a winger who is comfortable either side, so a someone like Gakpo or Diaby seems the most logical choice. Unless that Aussie kid is ready? Weirdly we’re not a long way off, but we said that we were 2 short in the Sunmer and so it remains. But 2 would be enough to push for top 6 before we then really aim for the big players. If we had Gakpo rather than Murphy, and Tonali instead of Longstaff we’d not have lost to Liverpool and could have held on vs City or taken advantage vs Palace and. Bournemouth. Know it’s greedy but that is where we could already be.
Nah. If we qualify for europe this season, we can worry about depth in the summer. This season it's about quality players and performances for me. We can still win game with the squad we have despite it's lack of depth in certain areas, but we seem to struggle to put teams to bed even with our full strength team. We desperately need more attacking options IMO, especially considering our attacking options being injury prone or just poor.
We don't know Isak is injury prone yet tbf, certainly we can't put him in the Wilson bracket yet. Maddison is priority for me, as its definitely achievable, and he'll bring in goals as well as tightening up midfield.
Understood but if Isak is out we have an injury prone option and a **** option, and also ASM who is good but injury prone. We cannot rely much on Almiron either.
Tbf with the **** option we went on an awesome run last season. Almirion clearly getting better all the time since he's got a proper understanding with Bruno now, but obviously not a striker. Just don't think we'll get another striker after spending £85m on those 2 in the last 2 windows. With the failed Maddison bids in the summer, I'm pretty sure he's the priority.
