I've aluded to my thinking in other threads but I think this summer we need to be a little bit ruthless in terms of recruitment. We now have a very progressive coach and one whose systems maximises the quality of the existing players. The shape is clear, the intentions are clear but we are lacking a bit in terms of suitability.
I've felt for most of the season that our first 11 is quite good and can give anyone a match on its day but it lacked depth and even the first choice was lacking a bit on the forward lines. I can't say that either wing has been convincing at any point this season. Even Son has been quite poor playing out on the left, which I do think is understandable at this stage of his career.
We need to sell and move a bunch of players that don't work and some of those names are favourites and we get all the same discussions of them being able to do a job except they can't. When you get matches like yesterday you see the failings in the 2nd or choice players and we've seen these failing over the course of the last 2 and bit months. Now it's not say we must move all of these guys on in the very next window but we do need to start thinking about replacing them.
Primarily I'm thinking about the forward three. It just doesn't work. The approach for Nusa suggests that we are at looking improving the void that is lwf role. So maybe we can be sorted there in terms of a starter and some depth.
Striker is in decent position with Son primarily and whoever ends up being the rotation option there (Richie or other).
The right hand side is a big issue. Kulu too often puts in sometimeish performances, his passing hasn't been crisp enough and he's just not been directly threatening since his first 6 months. He's ultimately not cutting it as a RWF, then you have Johnson who I do think plays better on the left but on the right he's a bit of ghost. He doesn't really get involved in the match and other than moments you can forget he's really playing at times.
I do think if we want to get serious we need to be a little bit ruthless with the left and right sides as neither is providing enough.
We need to be starting with different options in the wide areas than we have been this season.