The Wish List

2 center back a fullback and goal keeper must be our prime target for next season

 

Just need a reliable journalist to start reporting the Martial rumour now

 

Out:
Wilshere :'(
Mertesaker
Mustafi £15m
Chambers £20m
Ospina £5m
Perez £5m

In:
Manolas £32m (Buyout)
Diallo £10m
Weigl £30m
Allison £35m
O.Demebele (loan plus option)

 

Trabelsi, Kalou and M’Vila.

 

Strikers -

I just want a manager who will play Lacazette and Auba together. I am seeing so many line ups with Laca on the bench. They could have an amazing partnership. It doesn't make sense to use them as alternative strikers as they are completely different. You want to be able to change your line up but maintain the same style of play.

Main centre forward - Auba, Welbeck.
9 1/2 - Lacazette, Nketiah.

No. 10 - We have two number 10's on big contracts. There is nothing wrong with splitting the game time between them. As well as moving them further back to play them at the same time vs certain opposition.

Özil - Mkhi

Midfield

Major problems here, but I think it is more about combination and system. The main factor is Ramsey. If we sign him we are saying that we are building around him and Ramsey contributes a lot in terms of goal threat and running forward. Technically in possession he isn't the greatest and defensively he neglects his duties. He needs to be played in a 3 man midfield where the other two are intelligent enough to fill the gaps that he leaves.

Forward thinking 8 - Ramsey, Elneny, Rene-Adelaide
Ball retention centre mid - Golovin, Iwobi
Deep lying playmaker - F. De Jong, Xhaka

Central defenders

Those who aren't good enough need to be sold. Chambers and Mustafi are not good enough. It is that simple. I have a little bit more faith in Holding and think he needs one more season. Money needs to be spent on aggressive centre halves who love to defend. Not defenders who want to look pretty on the ball.

Koscielny, De ligt, Holding, Soyuncu.

Left back

Personally I don't think Kolasinac is a first choice left back, however he can be effective in games where we dominate the ball. As consistent as Monreal has been, I wouldn't mind buying Sessegnon to replace him.

Right back

I'd actually sell Bellerin if we need to fund our buys. I don't think AMN would have a problem playing there.

GK - Massive signing needs to be made. A. Becker for me.

So it looks like:

ST - Auba, Welbz
9 1/2 - Lacazette, Nketiah
10 - Özil, Mkhi
AMF - Ramsey, Elneny, Rene-Adelaide
CMF- Golovin, Iwobi
DM - De Jong, Xhaka
RB - AMN, Youth prospect
CB - De ligt, Holding
CB - Soyuncu, Koscielny,
LB - Kolasinac, Sessegnon
GK - Becker , Cech, Macey

Out: Perez 12m, Ospina 5m, Mustafi 25m, Chambers 20m, Bellerin 60m, Monreal 8m, Wilshere free, Mert free, Campbell 1m. 131m + 70m to spend is 200m.

Out for constructive loan - Sheaf, Mavropanos, Willock, Nelson.

In : Golovin 15m, De Jong 10m, De Light 45m, Soyuncu 20m, Sessegnon 25m, Becker 60m.

175m spend.

Profit!

All of the above based on no champions league football and us getting a manager who can actually coach a diamond.

 

There are nice ideas there but it wouldn't really work in reality. An ageing Kos and 3 defenders 18, 21 and 22 years of age? We'll get battered by all the big teams again. The only young CB we should be looking at is Milan Skriniar who at 23 is already an exceptional defender. Otherwise we need someone at least 25 with experience under their belt.

Same goes for midfield, Ramsey/Golovin/De Jong would be schooled by the other big sides. This team needs an Nzonzi, Fabinho or Kondogbia. De Jong looks super promising, but he's nowhere near ready to help us.

As absolutely dire as we are, we're somehow lucky enough to find ourselves with players like Özil, Aubameyang and Mkhitaryan at the very peak of their careers. The next 2-3 seasons will be their last before they start to decline. We don't have time to watch defensive prospects develop because by the time they do, our attack will be past it. We need a goalkeeper, defender and midfielder who already have experience to come in and drastically improve us next season.

 

This squad is honestly such a fiasco. We only have one starting winger, we have three strikers but use a formation that only plays one, we have a bit of a specialist #10, we have a mismatching mix of CMs, we don't have a single reliable, experienced CB, we have a GK who is now well past his prime...

It's hard to build a cohesive unit with that bunch tbh. Even if you try to find positives, you've got to admit that our player requirement has been atrocious. I don't see a long-term plan. Big work needed this summer, let's hope Sven saves us.

So much work is needed that I think one of our valuable assets need to be sold to raise funds. One of Ramsey, Bellerin, or Lacazette; they are good players but replaceable (Ramsey not like-for-like, but someone more technical to participate in build up could work fine).

 

Bellerin would be the one to go. Can’t afford to lose Ramsey and Lacazette won’t leave after one season. We should sell a number of players before even thinking about selling one of those guys.

Ospina, Mustafi, Perez, Akpom, Campbell, Martinez, Asano, Jenkinson, Holding it Chambers and Welbeck should all go first. That would probably be £70-80m at least, plus the £70m budget we supposedly have that’s £150m in total give or take. If we can’t get it right with that then I’m not sure what use having an extra £50m from selling an important player would do anyway.

 

In all honesty we have a bunch of poor players with low market value. Teams dont want these players and those that do will push for loans. Our recruitment over the years has been shocking and we are now reaping what we have sown. In recent times we have bought 2 strikers who have reached their ceiling for near 100m. Their value will fall over the next 2 years. We don't have a player in our squad worth 70+ which in todays market is the standard price for a good quality player.

 

Its time to sign younger players with a high ceiling. We used to do this but came away from this concept to sign 'world class' marquee players which we thought would take us to the next level. This concept has failed to materialise leaving us with a disjointed and unbalanced squad. This should be the worse things will get. Its time to build a new young hungry side with a clear blueprint

 

Think we would easily sell Welbeck, Mustafi and Holding/Chambers. Campbell could do well at the World Cup, same with Ospina. Think the ones that will be difficult to sell are Jenkinson, Asano and Akpom. Wouldn’t surprise me if we just let them go like we did with Debuchy.

Don’t forget this is a market where average championship players like Nakhi Wells, Chris Wood and Jordan Hugill are selling for £10m +

 

I agree on Welbeck. After this season Mustafi wont be an attractive CB option for potential buyers. Considering we spend near 35+ on him if any offers do come in they are likely to be loans with an option to buy at a considerable loss. Chambers has more value due to the fee we paid and his loan spell at boro enhancing his somewhat reputation. Holding wont be sold and doesn't really have a sell on value currently due to his inexperience and fee we paid initially being 2-3m. Ospina is sellable but we wont get anything more then 6-7m. The rest are deadline day dead wood. Something will have to give. Either the board back the current or new manager or a 50m- asset is sacrificed

 

some random fans on Twitter? I think all fans do that don't they

As for Havertz, he'd be mad to go anywhere next season. If Leverkusen get into the CL, best thing he could do is stay there for a bit, and carry on learning and developing under their coach, who has done a great job with them this season. And he'd get a first taste of European football too. Hopefully he does what Brandt did and commits himself to the club for the forseable future. Coming to the prem where he likely wouldn't be a starter at first would stunt his development.

But I agree with what NieThePiet said about him being ahead of Bailey, actually, I would put them in the order of Brandt, Havertz and then Bailey. Brandt has really developed so much this season, best thing he did was turn down Liverpool last summer, so he could play more in Leverkusen. He is turning into a beast of a player.

 

We would still get at least £20m for Mustafi imo. I think the minimum we’d get for each player would probably be:

Mustafi - £20m
Welbeck - £15m
Chambers - £15m
Holding - £7/8m
Perez - £7m
Ospina - £5m
Campbell - £5m

If Campbell scores a couple at the World Cup, we could probably get £10-12m for him. Of course we won’t sell them all but based on our outgoings in the last couple of windows, I’d be confident that at least 3 or 4 will be gone.

 

Its ironic that in an inflated market, we wont even get the money back we paid for any these guys bar campbell. Poor recruitment has cost us on and off field

 

We’ll make our money back for everyone on that list bar Mustafi and Perez.

 

With our budget likely to be lower, I’m not sure buying from within the league is a great idea. The majority of transfers from mid/lower table sides to the big six over the last five/six years haven’t exactly worked out either.

Liverpool

• Carroll - £35m = Fail,
• Henderson - £20m, debatable as he has played a lot of games. Still a bang average midfielder. = Fail
• Downing - £20m = Fail
• Adam - £9m = Fail
• Allen - £15m = Fail
• Sturridge - £12m, bought from Chelsea but I’ll include him anyway as he wasn’t a regular. A couple of good seasons = Success
• Mignolet - £9m, never convinced at Liverpool = Fail
• Lovren - £20m = Failure so far
• Clyne - £12m, not the best right back but was solid for a few seasons and £12m was a respectable fee. Success
• Ings - £9m = Fail
• Lambert - £4m = Fail
• Benteke - £32.5m = Fail
• Mane - £34m = Success
• Lallana - £25m, only had half a good season so far. Undecided
• Wijnaldum - £25m = Success (just)
• Van Dirk - £75m = Undecided, hasn’t played enough games yet.

Man United

• Zaha - £15m = Fail
• Fellaini - £27.5m = Fail
• Luke shaw - £27m = Fail
• Schneiderlin - £26m = Fail, not convinced at Everton either.
• Lukaku - £75m = Success (just)

Chelsea

• Moses - £9m = Seen as weak link this season but based on playing in a title winning side last season I’d consider him a good signing. Success
• Demba Ba - £7m = Undecided
• Remy - £8.5m = Undecided again, probably leaning towards failure for both Ba and Remy.
• Begovic - £8m = Fail
• Drinkwater - £40m = Failure so far.

Man City

• Rodwell - £12m = Fail
• Sinclair - £7m = Fail
• Bony - £28m = Fail
• Delph - £8m = Success?
• Stones - £47.5m = Undecided

Tottenham

• Dembele - £15m = Success
• Dempsey - £6.5m = Fail
• Vorm - £5m = Undecided
• Trippier - £3.5m = Success
• Davies - £10m = Success?
• Wanyama - £12m = Success
• Sissoko - £30m = Fail
• Llorente - £15m = Fail

Arsenal

• Arteta - £8m = Success
• Ox - £15m = Fail (for us anyway)
• Chambers - £16m = Failure so far

We don’t really do it anyway but there’s probably a reason for that, when you look at the amount of players that have failed at bigger clubs, it’s incrsible really. There’s also Everton recently:

• McCarthy - £13m
• Bolasie - £25m
• Schneiderlin - £24m
• Gueye - £25m
• Pickford - £30m
• Williams - £10m
• Siggurdson - £45m

Of course they’re all still at the club but you wouldn’t say any of them have been particularly impressive so far!

 

Where are all the mu'f*ckin' links at? It's nearly summer already, usually we're getting spit-roasted by dubious links to French players at this stage in the season. Not so much as a hand on the bum in the elevator right now. Gimme some links, people.

 

Agreed, I wish big Ornie was active on twitter outside of the transfer window.

 

If Southampton go down then we should sign Bertrand even if he isn’t a priority.

Shaqiri at Stoke would also add some genuine quality.

These aren’t players we seriously need, but they would be the kind of shrewd purchase that we should always be on the lookout for.