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Management Preparing for the Championship - What will our squad look like?
- Thread starter Kid Chameleon
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Will be interesting to revisit this in 4 months time. Predictions seem to vary between "we will be reduced to a squad solely of our youth players" to quite optimistic about who will stay.
Here's my prediction:
Sell: Vic (18m), VDV (55m), Romero (35m), Porro (30m), Bentancur (5m), Richarlison (10m), Dragusin (15m), Donley (£3m), Takai (£7m) - raise around £180m
Loan: Xavi, Kudus, Gallagher, Yang, Souza
Release/End Loan: Davies, Palhinha, Biss, RKM
That leaves:
GK: Kinsky, Austin + [New Signing]
RB: Spence + [New Signing]
LB: Udogie + [New Signing]
CB: Vuskovic, Danso, Phillips, Byfield, [New Signing]
CM: Gray, Bergvall, Sarr, [New Signings x 2]
RW: Kulu (if he's alive), [New Signing]
LW: Tel, Odobert, Moore
CAM: Maddison, Devine, [New Signing]
ST: Solanke, Lankshear, [New Signing]
As for all the incomings, 3-4 of those would be loans and I'll guess we'll spend around £70m quid?
Some will say this is wildly optimistic but when you can raise around 170m, why keep selling? We're simply not gonna sell our entire squad and even my prediction means a turnover of 14 senior players (including loans) which is absolutely massive. Any more than that would be simply negligent when it's not a financial imperative.
If anything, I think we might have a few more players staying that people won't expect. I have a weird feeling Porro might be stuck with us and/or maybe Gallagher.
As for the kids, given their low(ish) wages and long contracts it simply doesn't make sense to sell any of Gray, Bergvall and Vuskovic imo. The latter might get a mega offer we simply can't refuse, but beyond that I think we have to just sell him a dream and, if that doesn't work, force him to stay.
Here's my prediction:
Sell: Vic (18m), VDV (55m), Romero (35m), Porro (30m), Bentancur (5m), Richarlison (10m), Dragusin (15m), Donley (£3m), Takai (£7m) - raise around £180m
Loan: Xavi, Kudus, Gallagher, Yang, Souza
Release/End Loan: Davies, Palhinha, Biss, RKM
That leaves:
GK: Kinsky, Austin + [New Signing]
RB: Spence + [New Signing]
LB: Udogie + [New Signing]
CB: Vuskovic, Danso, Phillips, Byfield, [New Signing]
CM: Gray, Bergvall, Sarr, [New Signings x 2]
RW: Kulu (if he's alive), [New Signing]
LW: Tel, Odobert, Moore
CAM: Maddison, Devine, [New Signing]
ST: Solanke, Lankshear, [New Signing]
As for all the incomings, 3-4 of those would be loans and I'll guess we'll spend around £70m quid?
Some will say this is wildly optimistic but when you can raise around 170m, why keep selling? We're simply not gonna sell our entire squad and even my prediction means a turnover of 14 senior players (including loans) which is absolutely massive. Any more than that would be simply negligent when it's not a financial imperative.
If anything, I think we might have a few more players staying that people won't expect. I have a weird feeling Porro might be stuck with us and/or maybe Gallagher.
As for the kids, given their low(ish) wages and long contracts it simply doesn't make sense to sell any of Gray, Bergvall and Vuskovic imo. The latter might get a mega offer we simply can't refuse, but beyond that I think we have to just sell him a dream and, if that doesn't work, force him to stay.
Agree with most of that although i think we might sell Gallagher and maybe Xavi. But as you say we can bring in £180m to £200m by selling 7 or 8 so no real need to sell our better youngsters. Need to bring in a bit of experience in the keeper and defence as we'll have a very young squad and a couple of the better champo players like Hackney and Fatawu would help. If we did something approaching that to be honest i'd be looking forward to it. I know i'll be much more invested than the last few years anyway.
Agree, with the young players, they are going to want to play and build a reputation, so if we tell them we’ll build around them, we’re not selling you, they’re not going to sulk and refuse to play for us. That’ll just fuck their development up. With the older players, who have made their money and reputations a bit more set it’s a bit different.
Personally I’d be alright with losing Ugogie and Spence as well. I think new full backs are a priority. I wouldn’t be against selling Tell as I don’t think he’s really a natural striker or a winger, he can play both but not that good in either, in England anyway. Kudus might leave as he hasn’t really built anything meaningful here anyway and I’d be more than okay with that. Another one who’s never going to be good enough in the end. New wingers are a must as well.
The only reason I have Gallagher and Xavi down as loans is that:
a) they're both on silly wages beyond their talent that v.few clubs can afford
b) as new signings, unless we can get all our money back then they'll count at losses in our accounting. in a few years, even if we sell them at a loss it counts as a positive due to amortisation
Since clubs will inevitably lowball us for them both, it will probably be financially smarter just to loan them both to get the wages off the books then reevaluate in a year's time. Maybe they can be reintegrated if we come back up or reloaned/sold.
But sure, if someone's actually willing to give us our money back or close to it then fuck it, sell em.
Agree with the essence of what you're saying, especially about the likes of Gray, Bergval and Vuskovic, but I'd even go a step further - as you say, we don't NEED to let so many players go, so personally I think it will be significantly fewer than that... If I can count correctly (no guarantee of that...) you've said 9 will be sold, 5 will be loaned out, and 4 will be released / end their loans with us, so 18 effectively out in total. I wouldn't be at all surprised if we lose fewer than that - so from your list maybe we'd keep Xavi, Kudus, and one senior player from your 'sell' list (Porro? VDV? Richie?)
I know some will argue that 'if players want to leave then they will leave', but it simply doesn't work like that, many are under long contracts, and if the Kane situation showed us anything, it's that our board will only let players go when the board decides that both the timing and the money are right. Though that might be less so now without Levy, who knows...
Overall, I suppose we're all just guessing, no one knows, will be very interesting to find out (though obviously we all hope we somehow survive and won't need to do any of the above - in which case that list would reduce significantly...)
PS You're also suggesting 9 new signings - I know relegation is unprecedented for us, and perhaps that's your answer to the following question, but have we ever bought 9 players in a single window before?
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I'd also be up for selling those guys too, but we simply aren't selling/releasing 17 players. Some players have to stay and logically those guys kinda make sense since we're short at full-back as it is.
Wouldn't be that surprised if Porro stayed and Spence went though. Have a feeling De Zerbs won't like Spence's attitude and not sure we'll get an offer for Porro deemed good enough.
I think the 50% wage cut (if true) will focus their minds. They might not get what they're on with us now but they'll be able to pick up more elsewhere if we're relegated. I think some prem team will take Gallagher, Xavi maybe not as teams abroad dont have a pot to piss in.
Barring Romero and VDV - vuskovic, gray and bergvall will be our most in-demand players. We will do well to hold onto any of them - none of them have any affinity to the club and have been in demand/admired by other clubs doing much better than us. We won’t hold out for 80mill or get the value we’d like for these guys either as we are in a desperate place.
The rest of our squad might want to leave or we might want them to leave but I think that will be the more difficult job. Nearly all of them have been hopeless.
The rest of our squad might want to leave or we might want them to leave but I think that will be the more difficult job. Nearly all of them have been hopeless.
On paper even our youth loan players like Philips (Stoke Captain), Devine, Lankshear are well above average for the championship.
Philips, Devine, Moore, Williams-Barnett, Thompson, Byfield all would get into most championship sides.
What is more important is spirit and a good system with a good manager. We should easily be the strongest team ability wise but that won’t count for shit if the manager is poor.
Our squad is bloated. We have a huge number of sales before we have to get to Gray. We’d need about £100m or so of sales and our backline if off, Romeo, VDV, Udogie, Porro and Vicario. No reason to sell Gray cheap it would be stupid.
Yeah exactly. Inter are apparently willing to pay around 15-20 for Vic, someone will come in for Dragusin, Bentancur will find a buyer, and that's not even taking into account the 80-90m we should be able to get for our two 'star' CBs. Much better to flog, say, Porro for a bit of a loss than sell the future of the club cos Villa are offering 40m for Bergvall or Gray.
Totally agree it would be a mistake and not what we’d want but if the players want away i don’t think we’ll have that much of a choice.
Yeah maybe a bit much, but bear in mind a few of the sales/loans I listed are youth players/prospects - it's only actually 14 first team squad players exiting so not as extreme as the 18 total sounds.
As for the high number of incomings, I said 3-4 would be loans (likely to make up numbers and save on cost) but when you lose 14 players it's natural you bring in loads. Burnley brought in like 10+ between buys and loans when they got relegated so far from unthinkable.
I totally agree that there will be some wildcards in there though. Some players everyone is fully expecting to leave will stay and probably the opposite too.
Here's my prediction. We're not going down...!
Take that kind of talk over to the positivity thread. This one is for the doomsters.
Phillips isn't Stoke captain, just was made captain once while their captain was out and their vice captains were on the bench. Lankshear isn't well above average for the Championship but he's doing well for his age.
Bear in mind 90% of our first team squad, given the choice, would prefer to leave at the end of the season. Do we just lie down and let them leave cos they want to?
I know De Zerbi says he only wants players that want to be at the club, but the reality is, we don't have that luxury. For the club to continue to function we'll have to keep a lot of players that would rather be elsewhere. Much like we've done in the past with Kane and Modric. Both threw their toys out of the pram but we didn't just let them leave cos they wanted to did we?
And tbh, it's actually much simpler to keep young players cos they're on lower wages and much more eager to play since they're not that well established. They can't really go on strike as the club has far more leverage than they do.
If a player like Gallagher or Xavi goes on strike to force a move then they have us over a barrel as they're on 200k per week, but not Vuskovic or Bergvall - quite the opposite. Vuskovic is on like 10k p/w or something - the club has all the power in that situation especially. The only reason we should sell is if we get an absolutely monster bid.
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