Next seasons squad

[Muttley]

Coaching and tactics will make the biggest difference, if players are fit

This is by far the most important part of where we find ourselves.

 

[harr1984]

I actually agree with most of what you've said, but I was trying to be realistic.
If you add all of your changes on top of mine it's too big of an overhaul - they usually have negative consequences.

Kinsky - is he good enough over a season? No idea. Apart from shot stopping he's really good. Next season is the perfect season to blood him properly and have an experienced back up to help him develop and as a contingency.

Udogie I agree on.
I'd forgotten about Souza - udogie and souza works. Robertson and Souza is an option for sure.
Mirror that on the right, Spence and an experienced RB. Make or break for Spence to own RB.

Who do you get rid of for a ball playing CM?
Doesn't RDZ like to get the ball into wide players that play in the channel and then have the other wide player, the striker and attacking mf as scoring threats?

Odobert! Of course! Add him to my doubts list.
Moore and Tel.
One of the supposed hottest prospects in English football and a £60m signing - I don't see us signing anyone to be ahead of them.
And I think it's better if we focus on a couple of experienced pros at the back and go as big as we can on strikers.

Our squad isn't actually that weak - it's on par with 13/14 other teams. The PL is just really tight these days.
Coaching and tactics will make the biggest difference, if players are fit.
Injuries are the biggest conundrum - focusing on fixing that , whether it's structural or about the individual players, is step one.

Bissouma is likely leaving and sometimes you have to make hard decisions and get rid of decent players for the sake of the balance of the squad - would I fall off my chair if someone like Sarr was sold? Not really. We need a passer and we don't really have one.

I don't know to what extent Moore has been hyped beyond this place, but I've watched a lot of him this season and he is nowhere near the level we need. You say Odobert is one of your doubts, he is of a much higher level than Moore. Not writing him off by any means, he's obviously a young guy but he has a way to go before being anywhere near PL ready. Tel and Moore, Tel and Odobert or whatever combination - we need a quality left winger and allow Odobert/Tel to continue their development under them...

 

[Ace Face]

This squad is nowhere near the quality for the top 6

Nowhere near enough G/A in it, even if you had the injured players back.

Our midfield is devoid of anything, Bent/Gallagher are good squad players for certain games but we don't have a Wharton/Scott who can open up a defence

The defence has improved under him, but it still just switches off

But we did score for fun under Ange in both seasons. We essentially swapped Kudus for Sonny last summer but other than that not much changed squad-wise.

I agree we need to make several key changes this summer but the point that RDZ would have had us challenging for a CL spot IF he had Kulu, Madders, Kudus, Solanke, Romero and Odobert available is still valid IMO.

 

[Bishop]

Kudus to you for listing all that out, I agree with a lot of that but just a few things I would argue with:

- We need a new starting GK, Kinksy is good enough cover but not convinced he is good enough over the course of a whole season to be no.1
- Udogie, I question whether he is really good enough anyway but he is not consistently fit enough to be relied on as our main LB and having the right footed Spence there for a lot of the time is not good enough. One thing about Udogie is that he shows just how much better we look having a left footer there who gives balance, even when he's not playing well. We either trust in Souza to develop or as it looks like we want to do with Robertson get in another LB (not that I rate him anymore).
- We definitely need a ball playing CM, a true passer
- Our LW is weak, no way should it be Tel and Moore. I've seen a lot of Moore, he is not good enough for PL football yet and Tel I like and has potential but should be the backup option. Odobert was coming along nicely so he has to be under consideration too.

Like you say, different conversation if in the Championship though .....

You pretty much pointed out all of what I considered flaws in squad setup. LW is terrible and LB needs sorting, in CM we need a passer and I would skip Palhinha and go for a Joao Gomes who does most of what Palhinha offers but is way better on the ball and lot more progressive with it. You could arguably even maybe skip the progressive this summer if we got Gomes in. I would rather go for both.

But we did score for fun under Ange in both seasons. We essentially swapped Kudus for Sonny last summer but other than that not much changed squad-wise.

I agree we need to make several key changes this summer but the point that RDZ would have had us challenging for a CL spot IF he had Kulu, Madders, Kudus, Solanke, Romero and Odobert available is still valid IMO.

No manager is ever going to have everyone available so you're living in fantasy land there. Even with all of those players available we still lack goal threat. Yes Ange got us scoring 60ish goals but that was at the expense of also conceding 60ish goals. RDZ isn't as suicidally gung ho as Ange so he's not going to attempt to overload the opposition at all times no matter the circumstances so no he's not likely to get 60ish goals from this group. He actually needs quality forwards as his game is a lot more balanced than Ange's. Scoring lots at the expense of conceding tons isn't a positive.