Fair call. I’m also sure that we can include Danns for example ( Provided he’s recovered from his injuries) as a youth player and still go in with one homegrown slot less. He can do a job as a 4th striker. We can then let one of Elliot/Gomez/Jones go without really needing to replace them with necessarily a HG player.
Ah I see…thought someone had done the dirty on us…again…
I’d be very surprised if Chiesa or Endo is still here in September.
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Yeah probably not. It’s just pointing out what we have room left to do and how the likely exits will enhance that.
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Used to be kind of easy to predict a ‘first’ and ‘second’ eleven but at the moment it’s kind of impossible. We don’t know what kind of setup Iraola will use here. We don’t know which players are going to leave and players will also come in. We have players injured like Ekitike and Bradley and we could also add Danns and Bajcetic to that list.
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Johan Manzambi.
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Looks like the two wingers may be done in the next few days. Right back was seen as the priority as well but after Dumfries we’ve been linked with very few. Be interesting to see who we bring in.
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6 out 6 in, no we need a larger squad not the same size!
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Wharton is still worth buying, since right now we have zero long-ball skills within our first team since Trent left.
We need a much better team.
We will not get a much better team AND a bigger squad.
Rely on youth for backup. No point wasting our money on squad fillers and Endo, Chiesa and Elliott barely played, with Bajcetic and Morton back too.
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It´s not just his long ball skills though.
He´s excellent at passing the ball through the lines and we have Wirtz who thrives on being given the ball quickly in those little spaces. Not to mention through for Isak.
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That’s a coaching issue. Not a manpower issue.
We’ll get over that. Least of my worries.
I wouldnt say zero. Virgil can hit long.
So can Alisson.
That long ball play was suited for the high pressing team we had under Klopp.
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Bajcetic hasn’t kicked a ball in anger all season and Morton is in France.
Endo, Chiesa didn’t play much and that’s one of the reasons why our starters looked shattered or does Virg play every game again.
Our squad wasn’t/isn’t big enough to compete on all fronts, we need to develop the squad
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I think there’s an argument to say it’s really challenging to build a squad to compete on all fronts. The quality of player you need to win the PL and CL is extremely high.
But you don’t want to risk those players in the League Cup and early FA Cup rounds. You therefore need some squad depth types but how long do they hang around if they’re never going to play in the big games? So you need some youth too but the best young players want to, and need to, play in order to develop so a couple games here and there isn’t enough.
You look at PSG and they can basically rest the Ballon, d’or winner for half the league season so he’s fresh for the CL and still they’ll win the league. You can’t do that in the PL and we’re one of the few countries with two domestic cup competitions.
Right now I think our focus should be on building a squad for a title challenge and to go deep into the CL. I wouldn’t be bothered about either cup competition until we’re further along with the rebuild we’re in.
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That is the crux of it, selling 6 to buy 6, still leaves us short when competing for the 2 big ones.
Then you have to account for injuries and loss of form, the last bit is something Arne didn’t bother with. 
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That depends who you are selling.
Yeah as Mascot said it really depends on who we are selling. If we sell a player or players that hardly ever got used and bring in the same number of replacements that will be used. That is improving the squad depth.
Well indeed. It’s funny seeing people talk about Munoz being the Chiesa replacement given we sold Diaz with no real replacement last summer.
Essentially Munoz and Ngumoha are replacing Diaz and Chiesa if Enrico does indeed leave. That just gets us back to the depth we had in Diaz’s final season but you could make the argument it’s a weaker pair now than we had then but a pair that you’d hope the manager is willing to use a bit more evenly than Slot used Diaz and Chiesa.
I do wonder if we keep Elliott around with a view to him being a flexible option for the 10 and right wing. Not exactly a like for like with a Diomande but can we realistically bring in three forwards this summer for the required depth.