How would you improve the team in January?

[Guest Col city fan]

For all those peeps saying leave things well alone...

And anybody seriously wanting Zlatan here at City... 

[49er]

48 minutes ago, Col city fan said:

For all those peeps saying leave things well alone...

And anybody seriously wanting Zlatan here at City... 

The spirit of this thread is to establish how we would invest to get us into the top four, not our long term strategy. Signing a supposedly ‘ young and hungry’ player from a league one side is not the answer. 

[HighPeakFox]

I'd deffo flog Chilwell and do so without a planned replacement, because I like sounding tough. 

[Aus Fox]

Don’t know who, but would love an experienced goal scorer who would be happy to come and sit on the bench and maybe get a goal with a last 10-15 minute cameo.

Think Cottee (I know he ended up doing way more than that) Ferdinand, Phillips type.

[lcfc sheff]

Basically, players with European experience that are under valued somewhat. 
 

Celtic players like Edouard, Christie, Forrest and Ajer will be available relatively cheap in comparison to if they played in serie a/ligue 1/ the prem as due to the quality of their league. But all of them are playing well in Europe. 
 

 

[Dahnsouff]

1 hour ago, HighPeakFox said:

I'd deffo flog Chilwell and do so without a planned replacement, because I like sounding tough. 

Damn straight 

 

Hoo Haa (Chest Bump)

 

Add further vague attempt to undo blaspheming of the prodigal son

[eddylcfc]

Sandro Tonali - cover for Wilf

 

Haaland - cover for Vardy and heir to the throne 

 

[Ric Flair]

3 minutes ago, eddylcfc said:

Sandro Tonali - cover for Wilf

 

Haaland - cover for Vardy and heir to the throne 

 

What's Choudhury gonna be doing then? 

[Guest An Sionnach]

We could swap Gray and Mendy for Zaha , he wants European football and he will not go to any of "the big six". He would give us pace and strength and our two would get a chance to rediscover their careers.

[UniFox21]

Just now, Ric Flair said:

What's Choudhury gonna be doing then? 

Probably suspended for the rest of the season for a life threatening tackle 

[Dahnsouff]

8 minutes ago, eddylcfc said:

Sandro Tonali - cover for Wilf

 

Haaland - cover for Vardy and heir to the throne 

 

Haaland is a shoe-in for Man Utd I would guess. (Ole knows him well and is credited with helping him)

Edited 29 October 2019 by Dahnsouff

[UniFox21]

3 minutes ago, An Sionnach said:

We could swap Gray and Mendy for Zaha , he wants European football and he will not go to any of "the big six". He would give us pace and strength and our two would get a chance to rediscover their careers.

Have you just chosen your 2 least favourite Leicester players and decided Palace would happily swap them for their best player?

[Langston]

They're different players but for some reason I'd feel far more comfortable on us spending a bit on Ollie Watkins compared to Jarrod Bowen, no idea why

Edited 29 October 2019 by Langston

[egg_fried_rice]

Marcus Thuram

[Guest An Sionnach]

Just now, UniFox21 said:

Have you just chosen your 2 least favourite Leicester players and decided Palace would happily swap them for their best player?

No, both of them have ability but Mendy is now third on the list of our DMs and Gray just doesn't fit into our new possession game . He might well fit Palace's breaking style though, nobody doubts he has talent.

[UniFox21]

2 minutes ago, An Sionnach said:

No, both of them have ability but Mendy is now third on the list of our DMs and Gray just doesn't fit into our new possession game . He might well fit Palace's breaking style though, nobody doubts he has talent.

Palace have a fairly settled middle unit, Mendy would just be a bench player. Gray would probably do well but wouldn't replace Zaha in terms of goals and assists. And arguably Gray does fit in and is a good impact player for us. 

 

Palace would say the exact same as they did to Everton, cash or gtfo.

[Xen]

2 hours ago, 49er said:

The spirit of this thread is to establish how we would invest to get us into the top four, not our long term strategy. Signing a supposedly ‘ young and hungry’ player from a league one side is not the answer. 

Even if that's the thread's intent (where your's is the minority opinion, it seems), someone like Zlatan would quite probably make us worse in the immediate future. 

 

We're a side with a lot of youngsters and we've made a conscientous effort to build a strong team spirit amongst the players and staff where everyone is on an equal footing. Bringing Ibrahimovic in would make the whole place toxic and would put what we're building here at risk - both long term and in the immediate future. He had the same affect at United but got away with it as their club was already heading in that direction. Given that he'd be in a straight shoot-out with Vardy for our lone striker role as well, I'm not even that sure he'd improve us from a technical aspect (given that his game is so different to Vardy's). 

[Dahnsouff]

Jarrod Bowen

These stats are impressive and pretty consistent.

Is there something wrong with him? Why has no-one from the Prem taken a punt?

 

[Nicolo Barella]

1 hour ago, eddylcfc said:

Sandro Tonali - cover for Wilf

 

Haaland - cover for Vardy and heir to the throne 

 

If they were going to a club where they'd be cover it would be PSG or Juventus. We're not big enough to sit on literal golden boy candidates and offer them extremely minimal playtime behind two of our most nailed players.

[Nicolo Barella]

35 minutes ago, Dahnsouff said:

Jarrod Bowen

These stats are impressive and pretty consistent.

Is there something wrong with him? Why has no-one from the Prem taken a punt?

 

No pace, I guess clubs are worried he's Knockaert Mk. II

[les-tah]

1 hour ago, eddylcfc said:

Sandro Tonali - cover for Wilf

 

Haaland - cover for Vardy and heir to the throne 

 

You play too much Football manager. These guys are being touted for the most elite clubs in europe not leicester unfortunately  

[Bluearmyfox28]

Across the next 2 windows I personally can see the club strengthening in 5 positions especially if we qualify for Europe to manage the workload of games.

 

Striker £20/£25m - the club is In desperate need of decent back up for Vards. For me if we qualify for Europe it gives us the opportunity to buy another potential first choice forward with rotation of games key to keeping both forwards happy. Few realistic options I can think of are Morelos (Rangers), Zapata (Atalanta), Martinez (Atlanta).

 

Winger £25/£40m - the recent form of Harvey has been really promising of late to be honest & if Perez can kickstart his season now then brilliant. However for me quality in depth is still an issue out wide. Ziyech (Ajax) would be my marquee signing across the two windows, if that’s not possible we should look at Silva (Benfica) or Hee-Chan (Salzburg).

 

Attacking central midfielder £20/£30m - Olmo (Zagreb) would be my first choice, if not Olmo then Lopez (Marseille) or Cantwell (Norwich). 
 

Left back £15m-£25m - One of these three, Roussilon (Wolfsburg), Willems (Newcastle), Lewis (Norwich).

 

Centre back £20m-£30m - one of these four Lascelles (Newcastle), Tah (Leverkusen), Konaté (Leipzig), Upamecano (Leipzig).

This leaves you with a net spend of £100m/£150m which seems a lot but bare in mind we’ve still got the £80m in the bank from Maguire which leaves you down to a net spend of £20m/£70m then your likely to have the departures of Slimani £10m, Gray £20m, Mendy £5m. With the Maguire money included then brings you to a net spend of +£15m/-£35m. There is no reason then why we can no longer challenge for the top 6 on a consistent basis.

[Nickodemus]

Mitrovic

[Foxaholic ME]

21 hours ago, urban.spaceman said:

It's often pointed out how difficult it is to get value for money in January but we've had a pretty excellent record in the last 5 years:

 

2015

Schwarzer - Free

Huth - Loan

2016

Amartey - £5.6m

Gray - £3.5m

2017

Ndidi - £15m

Wague - Loan

2018

Diabate - £2m

2019

Tielemans - Loan

 

2/3 of the loanees have gone on to be invaluable players who've stayed the following summer.

The dearest purchase, Wilf, has become utterly undroppable and one of our most important players.

Diabate has flopped but he cost absolutely nothing.

Amartey has been an invaluable squad player at times, regardless of the criticism he gets.

Gray is frustrating for most but mainly because we know there's some definite talent there. Even if he never becomes the player he could be, that's still pretty good value for money.

Schwarzer was invaluable to have on the bench during 2015/16.

------

 

I think the squad is looking very good at the minute. There's no real need to be kneejerk and try to improve the first XI, especially as we're 3rd and have just won 9-0.

 

Midfield options are pretty excellent with Praet looking like a shrewd buy and Hamza being extremely reliable.

 

Perez and Barnes were unplayable on Friday night and I hope they'll continue to repay Brendan's faith.

 

Albrighton and Gray on the bench are useful though might need a bit more competition.

 

The defence is outstanding though a back up CB is definitely necessary. This might be the last season for Wes and Benkovic needs some game time so could probably go out on loan.

 

I'd be reluctant to go and buy anyone outright, especially as everyone knows we're loaded.

 

We do need to prepare for the possibility of getting into Europe so expanding on the squad is imperative. 

 

So we should be very cautious with our business this winter. I'd suggest a young CB and perhaps another winger - Ajer from Celtic and Bowen from Hull look like they could be excellent value for money, especially as the latter has 6 months left on his contract.

 

But I overwhelmingly trust our recruitment team to make the right decisions. That includes Rudkin too.

Dont forget we got Fuchs on a free

[Harry96]

Benharama is the one he’s a showman with the quality to match. Easily pl quality only 23 as well. Thuram is a decent shout too.