Agreed. We signed Capoue and Soldado only to eventually replace them with Mason and Kane, who we already had.
Obviously hindsight is a wonderful thing though.
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Agreed. We signed Capoue and Soldado only to eventually replace them with Mason and Kane, who we already had.
Obviously hindsight is a wonderful thing though.
My point wasnt over retaining the player or not ( I’m happy either way). My issue is with any attempt to justify his departure by stating that he wasn’t the same player as 2015/16 when after coming back from his injury he almost certainly was.
Month and a bit? That's just not true.
I would keep Dembele for another year. I don't see us reinvesting that money this summer. Imagine if we sell him... Dier, Wanyama, Sissoko + possible Jack Grealish. In what world is better to sell him now?
What's this "we play 4-3-3 now" business?
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I wouldn't ever expect Mawson to be as good as Toby. But he's a young CB who's shown plenty of promise and at £15m looks extremely good value in this market. He's proven at PL level (unlike Foyth) and would give us the option to play 3 CBs if we wanted to. I fail to see how we can ever really play 5 at the back this season if we don't sign a CB. We could maybe use Dier at CB but with Dembele potentially going, we look pretty thin at CM as well.
WE HAVE BEEN PLAYING 433 IN PRE SEASON.
If he leaves we have Dier, Wanyama, Eriksen, Dele, Winks, Grealish, Sissoko for central midfield. With potentially Amos, Onomah and Skipp as alternatives.
That's more than enough.
Whoever leaves, surely it needs to be a quality player coming in to replace them.
I’m very pro youth development and integration into the first team, however it needs to be exactly that, slow integration.
To me our first team squad should be that, with youth players given opportunities when first team players are injured or severely out of form. Then they are given opportunities to shine and stake a claim for being in the first team squad on a more regular basis.
Being thrusted in because we haven’t bought replacements is uneccessary pressure and gambling - if they don’t turn in to world beaters, we have nowhere to turn and all of a sudden top 4 football could well slip away.
In short, replace what we sell with proven players - we’re the 3rd team in the country based on last season, we cannot gamble on going backwards this season
I’m very pro youth development and integration into the first team, however it needs to be exactly that, slow integration.
To me our first team squad should be that, with youth players given opportunities when first team players are injured or severely out of form. Then they are given opportunities to shine and stake a claim for being in the first team squad on a more regular basis.
Being thrusted in because we haven’t bought replacements is uneccessary pressure and gambling - if they don’t turn in to world beaters, we have nowhere to turn and all of a sudden top 4 football could well slip away.
In short, replace what we sell with proven players - we’re the 3rd team in the country based on last season, we cannot gamble on going backwards this season
Yes, and we didn't have our England players. What's your formation then? You think Poch is gonna play 4-3-3 with Dele/Eriksen as CM?
Dier, Wanyama, Winks, Sissoko + Grealish isn't good enough for major things (as winning trophey or progress in the CL).
Not sure why not having our WC players would make a difference. You use pre season to build your fitness and try new things. It's been a success. No doubt we'll do the same against Girona.
Yes he will play Eriksen and Dele in CM. Why not? He's played them both there before. I'd hazard a guess at times he may attempt Dele on the left in a 433 to allow Winks game time. But beyond that, those two have everything needed for a 433 to succeed.
Choosing between a fit Dier and Wanyama is the headache.
Except that two of those players are better used further up the pitch, two are injury prone and one is dogshit
I think you're over-drawing conclusions from this.
Why would you take Dier and Eriksen out of roles which they were seemingly put on this earth to play, just to name two. Who would be better deployed in a 433? Son I will grant you, maybe Davies, who else?
Does playing in a 3 prevent them from getting forward or?
Well you could argue that we have two defensive midfielders in our squad and neither have been available for the majority of pre-season. Maybe Poch went with 3 midfielders to cover this fact? We can't know for sure what he'd have done if we'd had Wanyama and Dier available for the 3 pre season matches so far.
Lucas and Son would 100% be better in a 433. I think Dier and Wanyama would be too. Dier more so, because he's a bit better on the ball.
Eriksen deeper is the dream. He practically plays there anyway, just not on 'paper' - Dele, who played central midfield for most of his professional career, would benefit from the ability break through the lines of defence unmarked to be a killer in the box.
433 also benefits Sissoko in central midfield.
Whilst it isn't the same formation we played against Liverpool. Eriksen and Dele played deeper in that game and it was probably Deles best performance all season
Sissoko and Amos could quite easily have played in central midfield in a 4231. They didn't. Poch decided to play Eriksen deeper. He flourished.
Guess we'll see what we do against Girona. Couldn't make it 4 pre season games, 4 games with 433 could we before going into our first league game with most of these players, who havent played a single 4231 all summer?
And one doesn’t play for us - other than that it’s a good list
Neither Sissoko nor Amos look like DM's to me. Not natural ones anyway. I know Sissoko played there a bit last season but I imagine it was always alongside Wanyama or Dier, a proper DM. I don't necessarily disagree with you, but we can't be 100% sure whether we've properly switched to 4-3-3 until Dier and/or Wanyama are available.
