Yeah I think that would be our four, but with the Mbaye links, who knows. I think Chiesa should be moved on really if we have our four. With Barcola and Muñoz it would be a better 4 than last season at least.
Jones specifically has to be replaced with a HG player if he leaves.
As of now, we already have 17 senior non-HG players without Barcola. I don’t think we should continue skirting around and playing with a small squad like last season, it was not helpful at all. Stacking 2-3 HG players like Arsenal last summer (they bought Madueke and Eze) to actually build up depth is a better approach, especially when Iraola ball will be much more intensive physically than Slotball.
Oh I wouldn´t sell Jones. But Endo and Chiesa and even Frimpong sure. Tsimikas if a young English lb is free.
To be totally honest, assuming we wanted to get good replacements in, I think only Wirtz, Isak, Hugo and Van Dijk leaving would concern me, other than the fact we have not much time left.
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Those 4 plus Szobo and Grav will not leave for sure.
Indeed. I don´t really rate Grav or Szobo that highly but we have got them on such contrcts there is no chance they will be sold.
Nor Kerkez or the young ones. Everyone else probably fair game.
Wow. Grab maybe. Szobo? Give me strength.
What? I said they wont be sold.
Not rating them!
Oh. Have said before but they´re good players but for me they´re generalists and dont do the three key functions of midfield as i see it (protect the back four, control the game and bring your attackers into the game in good areas, or create chances). The first two especially important in our team.
Szobo for example is quick, athletic, works hard and shoots well. But he´s not creative and his passing game is pretty mediocre. I could find you a few examples if you like, just to show what I mean.
So whilst he is definitely a good all-round player, I especially don´t think he performs those functions and he´s not a great fit fora midfield that has Wirtz in the 10 position. Wirtz needs that passmaster and the defensive rock behind him to set the platform to play. Don´t think Szobo will create much for Isak or the wingers either.
Just how I see things and think a midfield should function.
They all have pros and cons, so the manager has to figure out the best setup. No player is perfect, not even Messi.
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Caveat is that in most lists Ramsay was being automatically given one of the 17 coveted spots because of an assumption that he’d have to be kept given the weakness at RB. With Araujo now coming in, that seems far less likely so it’s likely that he gets sent out now with Araujo taking his spot
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Fitting the squad for registration is the last thing to worry about. Chelsea still found a way with 50 players in their squad.
Cautionary tale. You literally cut a player’s career at the top well short if you overuse them at an early age.
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It’s a critical consideration for squad building. You cannot bring someone in without consideration for how you’re going to fit them in and who might need to be eased out to make room for them
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Yeah, sure, but we have quite a lot of players who don’t contribute much. We could find a way to offload them. It’s not like there’s no solution for that.
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On the other hand, this is partly due to Slot’s “brilliant” idea of using a small squad.
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Two other prime examples in my mind are Trent and Mount. Both played like machines at a young age.
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Yep we have loads of players we could offload and lose nothing, and a few we could offload and lose little significant.
I agree that balancing the fit is very important and a good point, but one advantage of having quite a poor squad by our standards is that we could easily offload a lot of our team.
Excellent point.
If you look at young players who played a lot of games and shone young, they either burn out physically (Owen, Fowler, Wilshere, Ronaldo even Rooney) or mentally (Robinho, Neymar, Rashford maybe) where they lose that hunger they once had.
I saw a comparison Michael owen made of games played by like age 21 and I think he was like one of the most games played and all but Zlatan has short careers. A note, Bellingham was high in that list.
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