Don't think we need a clear out, just improve our back up options/competition for places so we can rotate more to keep people fresh, plus drop players that are out of form. Our injury prone players could do with going - Keita, Ox and (maybe) Matip. I quite like Origi as an option, but Jürgen hardly uses him, so sell him. Despite what some think on here, he is the one we will probably get the most money for - a lot of clubs will be interested, we'll get >£20m for him. Unlikely to get that for any of the other 3 cos of their injury proneness.
Should we keep Kabak? If he's gonna cost £18m, probably not. He's a decent player and has done pretty well to come in, cope with the pressure and form a not bad partnership with Phillips. But his lack of pace doesn't suit our high line. Same could be said for Phillips. Either one would be better with a pacy partner, but I wouldn't keep them both. We're unlikely to get much over £10m for Phillips (although no way should we sell him for less than that), so I'd probably keep him as a good header of the ball in case Virgil is out, and bring in somebody with pace instead of Kabak.
Up front, we can forget about buying Haaland. His wages will be off the charts and FSG won't pay them. I don't blame them either - it would be mistake for us to try and outspend the sugar daddy clubs. We won't win at that game. Sancho might be a possibility. If Mo leaves then I suspect we will go for him. if Mo stays, I reckon we will go back in for Sarr, who looks a decent player to me and would give us another good option.
The solution to Bobby's lack of goals is just to start Jota up front. It's frustrating that we haven't seen much of him through the middle (surprised he came on to play on the left yesterday again) but he looks potentially pretty prolific when played there, so I would go with him next season, with Bobby as a back up (and potential AM option as well).
I think we really need to bring in better back up fullbacks (although can only really judge Tsimikas on the basis that Jürgen clearly doesn't want to play him). Everybody is ignoring this cos Trent and Robbo have been fit all season. But every season is different and,unlucky as we have been this one at CB, if we have half that bad luck with our FBs we will be screwed. They are so important to our play and we need better cover. Not sure who to be honest - Mourinho doesn't like Matt Doherty, maybe an option? Or we could bring in a first choice RB and play Trent in midfield. (But just having the option of another RB would mean we could play Trent in midfield in the event of injuries there.)
Other than that the squad is good enough. It still wouldn't surprise me if Gini stays. Jürgen obviously really rates him, and he doesn't really seem determined to leave. If he stays, and Trent (and Sarr and Bobby and Jones) were AM options, there is no need to bring in anybody else to replace Ox and Keita. If Gini leaves, we might need another quality "water carrier" type CM.
I think the above is realistic, and would leave us with a squad that can compete for the league and European Cup. If one or more of our front 3 leave, then we should spend big on a prolific replacement. But I am in no rush for any of them to go. I think they are tired and unfortunately out of form at the same time. [Edit -Bobby is maybe a slightly different story. He's never been prolific, and it may be we've run up against the limits of relying on the wide men to score so many of the goals. Opponents know that if they can stop Mo and Sadio running inside, we don't have much threat through the middle. So they double up on them every time the ball goes wide, and we end up either going back and trying the same thing on the other side, or throwing hopeful balls into a centre forward who generally isn't there, cos he isn't really a centre forward.] But Jota starting instead of Bobby makes sense to give us more goal threat thru the middle. That plus one more goal scoring back up out wide, and our attack should be firing again next season.
« Last Edit: Apr 15, 2021 04:15:01 pm by sore monad »
Logged