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Squad Analysis 2018/19

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The_Playmaker

Established Member
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IF we don't spend anything in January we will have roughly 80 million to spend in the summer and that's without Adidas or Champions league money.

I know we are acting like we don't have mokney but we don't have two separate budgets for January and the summer. we have one kitty and IF you total last January and last summer, we spent 115 million. WE made back around 40 off sales.

The thing is, I would happily commit 30 million of that budget to someone like Malcom if we could get him now as it would give the players and fans a boost.
 

dashsnow17

Doesn’t Rate Any Of Our Attackers
Trusted ⭐

On paper most of this team looks like a success, apart from Lichtsteiner obviously. But is it materially better than the team before it? We've bought a whole new team and gone from fighting for top 4 to...fighting for top 4.

Maybe i'm being harsh, we've brought in some quality and there's still a lot more squad overhaul to come, time will tell. But in terms of the overall quality of the squad it still feels like we're moving a lot but haven't actually travelled anywhere.
 

DanDare

Emoji Merchant and Believer-In-Chief
Trusted ⭐

Player:Saliba
Right back
Left back
Starting CB
Starting winger
Özil replacement
Xhaka replacement
Back up striker

A lot to buy

A lot leaving as well:

Cech
Koscielny
Mustafi
Monreal
Chambers
El-Neny
Özil
Mhikytaryan??
 
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Wryer

Well-Known Member
There are people saying Liverpool (whom I think stumbled on this formula - just saying) and Dortmund should be our reference. Which involves shrewd sale of players, even if they are pivotal.

So now, if PSG comes along with a 50m offer for Matteo, do we sell? Or 60m for Torreira to Barcelona?

My first instinct was yes, sell him and reinvest. Move the club along the line.

Then my second thought was - does that mean another 35m Mustafi or a 200k Mhkitarayan?

Do we have the scouting and management team to lead us down the right path? Sven is gone, which sets us back yet another year of changes. I don't have a good feeling about this - Emery is going to become the scapegoat of this mismanagement.
 

Tourbillion

Angry & Miserable
There are people saying Liverpool (whom I think stumbled on this formula - just saying) and Dortmund should be our reference. Which involves shrewd sale of players, even if they are pivotal.

So now, if PSG comes along with a 50m offer for Matteo, do we sell? Or 60m for Torreira to Barcelona?

My first instinct was yes, sell him and reinvest. Move the club along the line.

Then my second thought was - does that mean another 35m Mustafi or a 200k Mhkitarayan?

Do we have the scouting and management team to lead us down the right path? Sven is gone, which sets us back yet another year of changes. I don't have a good feeling about this - Emery is going to become the scapegoat of this mismanagement.
Hypothetically what would we do with the £60m we get for Torreira? How would we reinvest that to progress the team? Buy two young hot prospects? Buy one e.g. Doucoure? Would that be progress? I'm not being snarky, genuinely wondering what the best course would be in such a scenario.
 

Wryer

Well-Known Member
Hypothetically what would we do with the £60m we get for Torreira? How would we reinvest that to progress the team? Buy two young hot prospects? Buy one e.g. Doucoure? Would that be progress? I'm not being snarky, genuinely wondering what the best course would be in such a scenario.

60m would get us -

2 Mustafi
6 Guendozi

The stark difference is the precisely the point I was trying to make. Do we have the scouting and management team to invest in an intelligent manner?

To answer your question - I'll try to fix the defense with 2 central defenders. One that probably costs us 90% of that and another young promising defender. Of course, this is extremely hypoethical.

Now, I accept that there is no way all transfers work out. The challenge is - can we get 50% right? For the "failed transfers" does the transfer team have the nerve, verve and foresight to sell early if things are not working out? I'm sounding like I'm playing FM, but the question is - do we have a proper strategy, and do we have the strategic commitment to execute it?
 
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Brett

Active Member
The amount of dross we have is unbelievable; as mentioned above we need to shift a lot of players I am more than sure the club will give an excuse of needing to shift players before signing anyone due to the wage bill. Take it to the final few weeks of the window and make panic buys and few youngsters and the cycle will go on.

The very fact we were after carrasco and perisic does not give me confidence just shows we will sign who is available than who we want and that is what will cause problems.

This is the exact same thing which happened when we spent 100 million on Lucas Perez Mustafi and Xhaka:confused::mad:
That was a disastrous window. I am in a way glad that the deals for perisic and carrassco did not go through. It might have helped us short term but that is all.
 

DanDare

Emoji Merchant and Believer-In-Chief
Trusted ⭐

Player:Saliba
The amount of dross we have is unbelievable; as mentioned above we need to shift a lot of players I am more than sure the club will give an excuse of needing to shift players before signing anyone due to the wage bill. Take it to the final few weeks of the window and make panic buys and few youngsters and the cycle will go on.

The very fact we were after carrasco and perisic does not give me confidence just shows we will sign who is available than who we want and that is what will cause problems.

This is the exact same thing which happened when we spent 100 million on Lucas Perez Mustafi and Xhaka:confused::mad:
That was a disastrous window. I am in a way glad that the deals for perisic and carrassco did not go through. It might have helped us short term but that is all.

But they didn't go through because the club were being responsible and not lumbering themselves with long term problems for short term fixes...

Not sure why you draw the conclusion that this is evidence they'll do the opposite in the summer...
 

Nyctophobia

Established Member
To me the squad still feels like a puzzle where many of the pieces don't fit together, it's a really difficult situation.

I'm hoping for a purge come summer, and that we go on a buying spree and if we can't get all the quality players we would like to have at least I'd want the club to have the kind of players that suit Emery's plan, the way things are I feel like the manager is handicapped in terms of what he can do and I'm not surprised at the bipolar results we've been having.
 

Brett

Active Member
Just saying I need more than one window from them to make me believe again. Just hoping they can prove me wrong come Mid August. And would like to see us sort our defense first before going for wingers. I would rather like us spending 75 million on couple of players than buy 10 players. Lets start from fullbacks.
 

YeahBee

Terrible hot takes

On paper most of this team looks like a success, apart from Lichtsteiner obviously. But is it materially better than the team before it? We've bought a whole new team and gone from fighting for top 4 to...fighting for top 4.

Maybe i'm being harsh, we've brought in some quality and there's still a lot more squad overhaul to come, time will tell. But in terms of the overall quality of the squad it still feels like we're moving a lot but haven't actually travelled anywhere.

Leno
Martinez
Mavro
Torreira
Guendouzi

Bellerin
Iwobi (I'd still have a squad pos for him)
Holding
Chambers

Youngsters

Nketiah
Nelson
Willock
Plez
ESR
AMN


Are future proof for the Next 10+ years thou

Kola
Suarez
Laca
Xhaka
5+ years

Sok and Auba less then 5 years
That is only 19-21 players for Next season(s)


Youngsters coming throu does not cover all The old and feeble that needs to go :(

Monreal
Mustafi
Kos (keep around (for sentimental reasons imo)
El Neny
Mkith
Özil
Ramsey (whom I rather keep)
Welbeck
Cech
Ospina
Jenks

More could/should leave
Suarez might not pan out or even wanna join
Chambers might not wanna play second fiddle
ESR, Amn, Nelson etc might wanna go on loans


This summer we need to buy

1: 25yo CB for XI leftfooted!
2: 25yo rm/lm/am for XI (2 if suarez does leaves)
3: - 30years old pure DM
4 young LB and RB
5 young striker
6 young gk or a free transfer oldie

This gonna be expensive!
 

YeahBee

Terrible hot takes
Heck these few seasons svck and we haven't totally seen The benefit of Emery yet

Beaten chelski and spuds at home that is it, no great results to speak of.

The question is thou if we are willing to instead of going after atleast 3 proven starter quality guys that improve us immidiatly

We go for 6 guendozi type signings and if all goes well we reap the rewards in 3 years? But the succes is even greatest?
 

BigPoppaPump

Reeling from Laca & Kos nightmares
I wish Gazidis and Arsène had built a squad with structure in mind. Seems like they were buying players for the sake of it, I still say spending 100+ on 2 strikers was a mistake and a misuse of funds.
 

PoleInGoal

Well-Known Member

Player:Tomiyasu
I wish Gazidis and Arséne had built a squad with structure in mind. Seems like they were buying players for the sake of it, I still say spending 100+ on 2 strikers was a mistake and a misuse of funds.

Aubameyang and Lacazette were not the mistakes. The mistakes were getting Mkhitaryan instead of selling Sanchez the previous summer for 50 mil, giving Özil 350k, 35m on Mustafi
 

Beksl

Sell All The Youngsters
I think we will focus on defence where a backup RB (an up and coming youngster that has a potential to challenge Bellerin) and a starting ball playing CB are of utmost importance. I’d like to see a young prospect on the left side as well, maybe we can find someone from the Academy?

We’re getting a more polished Nelson back for the wide areas but we’ll need to add more. I wouldn’t sign a winger just for the sake of it but would wait for the right opportunity to add some serious quality.

I’m not sure if we have the financial muscle to invest in every area mentioned and if we’ll have to compensate I’d rather see us focus on defence. It also depends on the outgoings and how much we can recoup from those assets. Mustafi could fetch a nice fee and we’re looking to shed off significant weight off the wage bill so there is room, we just need to be smart about it.
 

Dennis_Bergkamp_10

Established Member
It's quite simple. We haven't had the resources that Man City, Chelsea, Liverpool (because of their sales) and United have. So we can expect to fight for fourth. But we still are supposed to have a 400 something million squad. That should amount to a certain standard of technical ability.

If you look at our squad, who really is good enough? It's all debatable, and that is the problem. Özil, Auba, Laca, Bellerin could feature in a title winning team I reckon. Would they get in the Man City starting eleven? Probably not. Liverpool's? Maybe a few.

The rest of our squad is so ****ing sub par, that you might lose to BATE. Or West Ham. Or draw at Brighton. And not only this year, last year as well. We don't have the required amount of skill to compete. And for the hundreds of millions spent, we should do better. Instead we fill our squad with workhorses and players who don't want the ball under pressure. And Mustafi.

We have a long road of rebuilding ahead of us. We need to go back to the Cesc era. Where we had actual football players. Yes they didn't win us anything. But we were entertaining, youthful, attacking and feared.
 

progman07

Established Member
If Özil and Ramsey leave us, and Welbeck leaves on a free, we will have the following attackers for 4 positions on the pitch (not counting the youngsters who Emery doesn't trust):

Auba (29 years old)
Laca (27 years old)
Iwobi
Mykhitarian (30 years old)

No backups. That is at least 3 signings in the attacking department, two of them into the first team. I cannot imagine that honestly happening.

Our last 3 years of squad 'building' has been a disgrace, and things could really go wrong here (e.g. an injury to one of our strikers). Take Aubameyang out and you can find teams better equipped in the middle of the table.
 

truth_hurts

but Holding’s hair transplant was painless
Our first team isn't good enough and that poses the biggest issue.

--------------------------------X---------------------------------
----------------X--------------------Sokratis--------------------
--Bellerin----------------------------------------------------X--
----------------Torreria----------X-----------------------------
-------Mkhi-------------------Özil-------------------PEA-----
------------------------------Lacazette--------------------------

or if we shift Özil or 5 at the back is here to stay:

--------------------------------X---------------------------------
----------------X-----------X--------Sokratis--------------------
--Bellerin---------------------------------------------------Beast--
----------------Torreria----------X-----------X------------------------
---------------------Lacazette-----------------PEA----------------

Basically in my opinion, we are missing 4 or 5 players of starting quality if we wish to trouble the top 4 next season. You could make a case for Leno being good enough. Even so, Koscielny, Mustafi, Monreal, Xhaka and Ramsey need replacing as do the roles of Cech and Welbeck.

That means at least 1 top class cb with us maybe trusting Holding when he returns, Guendouzi can have a larger profile, but we need to replace Ramsey with an equally experienced player. If Özil leaves then we need a top attacker to come in. Those 4 signings and we would actually be a threat.

For the sake of naming names let's get Butland, Maguire, Banega, Cresswell and keep Özil. Raise the profiles of Saka and 1 of Reiss Nelson or Nketiah.
 

ptrcopp

Well-Known Member
Walk? Maybe not, but that's no slight on the ability of Torreria. I think he'd start at Sp**s and pool. He is better than Herrera (albeit different) and would be an excellent long term replacement for Fernandinho.

I agree on Mustafi, Xhaka and Kolasinac being squad players. I'd probably look to sell Kolasinac to Serie A or the Bundesliga and buy a 4-4-2 fullback with good delivery.

This should probably be here now!

Perhaps Sp**s, but I don’t think Torreira would start at Pool, not when everyone is fit.

My whole point, that our first XI is filled with players who are good back-ups and not starters for a team with our ambition, doesn’t mean we should be automatically selling them. It’s our current squad players, like Elneny, that need need to be got rid of.
 
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