At this rate I don’t wanna see the likes of Carvalho and Elliott near the first XI.
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Once every three matches. Otherwise the poor dear is tuckered out.
Seriously though, LOVE Hendo for who he is and what he has achieved. But every human body has a shelf life
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I’m 47 and I can run way more and quicker than him now
That’s why I said a useful squad role, not he should be playing twice a week.
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Bellingham, Kone.
Priority signings. If we can do more beyond that, great. But sort the engine room and a LOT will start to look better about our team.
N’Dicka on a Bosman to replace Matip, or Gvardiol if the money is there.
We can keep going, but I’m trying to keep it limited to be more realistic, and without knowing the budget, or the details of minor investment, it’s tough to say what we might be able to do.
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Spend some money on Bellingham and two of Kone/Nunes/Neves/Caicedo or whoever else then get in all the free lads from the Bundesliga.
N’Dicka
Kamada
Laimer (if he’s not already signed for Bayern as you’d expect)
Thuram
Are Marcus and Khepram both Lillian’s sons?
Yessir
Unite the brothers then!
Laimer will sign for Bayern.
Kamada for Dortmund.
No way are we going to bring in three midfielders in the summer.
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Would be pure negligence to not buy at least three. We could probably do with four or five to be honest.
No, it wouldn’t be negligence. You would disagree, but it wouldn’t be negligent.
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I can see where that thinking comes from. You might be right but there’s a little something that says be careful. Don’t right off huge chunks of this squad just yet.
There’s clearly some obvious departures though.
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Not giving up on Top4 and I’m pretty sure Liverpool is Jude’s main priority but i wouldn’t rule out him staying at Dortmund for another year if we miss out on CL.
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Negligent was maybe the wrong/too strong a word to use, and I agree that we don’t need to be discarding ten or so players to have an effective rebuild but it is surely unavoidable that the midfield area will see the biggest overhaul. We already know three are certain to leave, and I would assume most of us expect Fabinho and Milner to move on as well.
That would leave us with Thiago, Henderson, Bajcetic, Jones and Elliot. Only adding two to that would personally make me feel uncomfortable as we’d still be both relying heavily on a few injury prone lads and on a couple of really young players finding levels of consistency that might not be realistic yet, two of whom it’s highly debatable if midfield is even the right position for them. To me it would smack of lessons still not being learnt.
Maybe the plan is to switch to more of a 4231, or to move Trent to midfield and so the number you need drops by a few. As of yet we’ve had no real indication of either of those things being in the pipeline though.
Is Skriniar also on a free this summer?
Nevermind.Just seen he’s signed a pre contract with PSG.
Which three? The way things stand at the moment, only Ox and Naby are certain to leave.
I think we should retain only three of the remaining four senior players and none should be allowed to play beyond 2000-2500 mins. My preference for retention is:
- Henderson: On and off field leader and still a workhorse if used judiciously.
- Thiago: An unique player and essential for certain opposition/games.
- Milner: Nobody can disrupt/disturb the opposition like him and a mentor for young players.
- Fabinho: Can still be good if you can provide a prime Wijnaldum-Henderson beside him.
So, three senior players, two new players, Jones, Elliott, and Bajcetic is a very good mix.
So many good midfielders around, no reason to properly reinforce this come summer.
Tier 1 - Bellingham, Barella, Caicedo
Tier 2 - Kone, Nunes, Thuram, Sucic, Mount, Ugarte, Musah, Luis, Le Fee
I can imagine us going for 1 Tier 1 player and 2 Tier 2 players. Sure there are many other names as well.
My priority would be players around 21-23 who are athletic and have physicality along with the normal things we need from our players.
If it were up to me, well we wouldn’t have got to this point anyway, but starting from what we have
I’d allow Milner, Ox and Naby to leave.
Hendo would become the new Milner.
Fab, Thiago, Jones, Elliott and Bajcetic would all be retained.
I’d buy two midfielders to add to that. Giving us a pool of eight players. Next summer I’d probably let Thiago and Fab leave and bring in another player as well as seeing how Morton is getting along. Then let Hendo leave the year after. By this point it should be clear if Jones has just been unlucky with injuries or if he needs to be improved on and if Elliott has continued to progress or not.
This was my inclination too but when you set it out like that it does show that this is going to be more than a summers work to fix.
I agree on the ones you’re keeping this summer but if we then think we might move Fabinho on next summer, Thiago is out of contract then and I think we’ve got to make a decision on Jones by then too we could be looking at needing 2 or 3 this summer and then another 2 or 3 next summer depending on our business this coming window. That’s an entire new unit bar Henderson and the two young lads all in the space of 12 months.
I’m still baffled we stumped up the better part of £150 on three (four if you count Carvalho) forwards in the last 12 months and not a penny on midfield bar a loan fee for Arthur (and £5m for Carvalho, if you even consider him a midfielder). It’s like we’re addressing one area of the team at a time.
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