Summer 2022 priorities (and realistic options)

[Allenho11]

We desperately need a CB and a RW as a minimum, depending on who else leaves (probably Tielemens).

Who should the club be looking to sign at CB and RW?

[coolhandfox]

RW , CM, CB minimum 

[urban.spaceman]

Trick someone into buying Vestergaard. Preferably Newcastle.

[FoxesWalk]

1st Team CB: Botman,

1st Team CM: Neuhaus/Tolisso

1st Team RW: Madueke

Backup LW: Lookman

 

I suspect we will sell 2 or so others along with Youri and they will also need replacing 

 

it’s gonna be a really important window for us in the summer. Think we will sign at least one full back for example, and at least one of Castagne or Ricardo will go. 
 

There are few positions we are very secure: GK, ST, CDM (if Wilf stays), Barnes and Lookman for LW is great. 

Edited 20 January 2022 by FoxesWalk

[Allenho11]

How much are the above going to cost?

Realistically we are going to get, what, 45M for Tielemens?

 

I'm just thinking aloud here, but how much will Tarkowski be available for if Burnley get relegated?

Could Hudson-Adoi be affordable and achieveable?

[fazzyfox]

If we lose Tielemans and can cash in on Perez I would try for:-

 

CB: Tarkovski

CM: Loftus-Cheek or Ward-Prowse

RW - Raphina

 

Might need a whip round in The Kings Head to get them all especially if we can't get full value for Tielemans

[FoxesWalk]

4 minutes ago, Allenho11 said:

How much are the above going to cost?

Realistically we are going to get, what, 45M for Tielemens?

 

I'm just thinking aloud here, but how much will Tarkowski be available for if Burnley get relegated?

Could Hudson-Adoi be affordable and achieveable?

Well Tolisso is available for free, but yeah, probably £20m more than we spent this summer. If we sell one or two first team players such as Youri and Soy/Ricardo then it is entirely viable imo. 
 

plus, we probably won’t be able to pull the likes of Neuhaus if we don’t get Europe. 

Edited 20 January 2022 by FoxesWalk

[Vindaloo FOX]

Moussa Niakhaté - CB

 

Matheus Nunes or Djibril Sow - CM 

 

Ismaila Sarr - RW 

 

Not sure we will have the money to bring them in though.

[Allenho11]

If a CM is targeted it has to come after a CB and a RW.

 

Our options will be;

Praet, Choud, Ndidi, KDH, Maddison (potentially), Soumare, Mendy.

[Bluearmyfox28]

Free agent CB, CM (if Youri goes), RW.

 

Free agent CB:

Christensen 

Tarkowski

Denayer 

(noticed Amartey is out of contract this summer)

 

Centre Mid:

Connor Gallagher

Donny Van De Beek

Kamara (free agent)

Kessie (free agent)

Loftus-Cheek

 

Right winger:

Raphina

Chukwueze

Berrardi

Madueke

Edited 20 January 2022 by Bluearmyfox28

[LCCFox96]

I'd like to see something along the lines of the below:

 

New Contract:

- Amartey

 

Out:

- Praet (permanent - hopefully Torino take up their option to buy)

- Mendy (permenent)

- Jakupovic (released)

- Perez (permanent if he does not sign a new deal)

- Vestergaard (loan - hasn't worked out, move on - would prefer a permanent)

- One of Tielemans / Ricardo / Soyuncu 

 

In: 

- New starting CB

- Lookman

- New starting RW

- Replacement for main first team player leaving

[Allenho11]

3 minutes ago, Bluearmyfox28 said:

Free agent CB, CM (if Youri goes), RW.

 

Free agent CB:

Christensen 

Tarkowski

Denayer 

(noticed Amartey is out of contract this summer)

 

Centre Mid:

Connor Gallagher

Donny Van De Beek

Kamara (free agent)

Kessie (free agent)

Loftus-Cheek

 

Right winger:

Raphina

Chukwueze

Berrardi

Madueke

We are not going to afford Gallagher for a start. 

[Pliskin]

We don’t need a lot, what we need is to put the spine back into the squad. So we need to be looking at a strong CB, and potentially a new CM, if Youri is off.

 

We need to bring some strong characters into the squad, the ability is there, we just need some more experienced heads and some leadership out on the field, something we desperately lack. 

[Ric Flair]

It's all well and good plotting a squad overhaul but if we don't rectify the injury issues then no variation of a squad you realistically put together will be sufficient. We have to get to the bottom of that, if having no European football is the only answer then that's not acceptable either as it proves that this regime isn't suitable to match our aspirations of challenging in 4 competitions year on year.

 

I'm praying Lee Congerton is still off to Atalanta, that's gone very quiet. We need to wrestle control back from Rodgers if there's been a slip there on the clubs front. Recruitment is crucial to our progression model. We need to go back to the buy low, sell high and reinvest to maintain at the very least our foothold in the top 8-10 PL clubs in the country.

 

I'm just seeing ever so subtle problems occurring that will manifest in to something bigger. We are slowly but surely losing our successful experienced title winners whom have been valuable squad members in recent years, we are also seeing young players now in their mid twenties that have stagnated and their value will start to plummet. We've also stopped targeting unproven but talented young players in the £10-20m price bracket and instead are trying to buy proven players in the £20-30m price bracket and it's not been anymore successful.

 

What that last point does is, it constricts the asset value of the squad and makes it harder for us to make the changes to our squad both in and out. We've seen in the last 2 seasons that we've not signed the number of new players we've wanted because we've been unable to move other players on for reasonable fees to enable that. We've had very little change to our best XI because in the eyes of the club they are the sole reason for our recent success and its unthinkable they ought to be replaced. We've wasted a lot of money on this perceived idea that better squad players will give us a better chance of lasting the distance over the course of a season, rather than try and improve the XI through quality over quantity and by doing so, the squad improves anyway as the previous starting XI player who now drops to the bench becomes a better squad player than who we had previous.

 

We've also opted not to move a high value asset on last summer, trying to keep together this squad. The issue there is, we've had less money to play with and rhe players are another year older and potentially another year closer to their contracts ending. Some of these players have now been together for 3-5 years or more and are tailing off because they perhaps have gone stale here and want a new challenge. All of this adds to the pressure of slowing down the conveyor belt of squad movement to enable us to keep things fresh and the intention of evolving and trying to progress. 

 

I think we need 5-6 new players, 2 new CB's, a new CM, a right winger, back up left winger (Lookman) and then probably a better back up DCM and a full back to replace Ricardo or Castagne. All of that without the right recruitment model of unearthing the best young players at modest fees is going to cost us north of £150m.

 

I'd expect us to get £45m for Tielemans in the summer and possibly £25-30m for Soyuncu but that could be a push. Ricardo and Castagne again would be a struggle to get £20m for. Other players needing to be moved on like Perez, Mendy, Vestergaard, Praet are going to be hard to shift for any money. Praet maybe will get someone pay us £10-15m.

 

But you can see the issues we face. Then we're in the realms of cashing in on an Ndidi or Maddison or Fofana to fund further squad changes and it becomes precarious. 

 

I could sort all this for the club, but they'll not dare ask.

 

[NasPb]

Aguerd, left cb, and should be obtainable due to being a league 1 player. Left footed very solid. 

[Ross 'LCFC' Turner]

There's a lot of deadwood in this squad and a lot of contracts running out by the end of next season: 

 

Amartey 

Kasper

Vardy

Ricardo

Soyuncu

Perez

Mendy

Tielemans

Choudhury 

Evans 

 

Add to the list above that Praet, Vestergaard, Bertrand SHOULD also be moved onto, we have a huge rebuild ahead of us. 

 

I've said it many times across various threads, but it really does feel like we'll look back at this season / squad in years to come and wonder "what if" we were able to get them all fit and on the pitch together. 

[sammy82]

8 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

It's all well and good plotting a squad overhaul but if we don't rectify the injury issues then no variation of a squad you realistically put together will be sufficient. We have to get to the bottom of that, if having no European football is the only answer then that's not acceptable either as it proves that this regime isn't suitable to match our aspirations of challenging in 4 competitions year on year.

 

I'm praying Lee Congerton is still off to Atalanta, that's gone very quiet. We need to wrestle control back from Rodgers if there's been a slip there on the clubs front. Recruitment is crucial to our progression model. We need to go back to the buy low, sell high and reinvest to maintain at the very least our foothold in the top 8-10 PL clubs in the country.

 

I'm just seeing ever so subtle problems occurring that will manifest in to something bigger. We are slowly but surely losing our successful experienced title winners whom have been valuable squad members in recent years, we are also seeing young players now in their mid twenties that have stagnated and their value will start to plummet. We've also stopped targeting unproven but talented young players in the £10-20m price bracket and instead are trying to buy proven players in the £20-30m price bracket and it's not been anymore successful.

 

What that last point does is, it constricts the asset value of the squad and makes it harder for us to make the changes to our squad both in and out. We've seen in the last 2 seasons that we've not signed the number of new players we've wanted because we've been unable to move other players on for reasonable fees to enable that. We've had very little change to our best XI because in the eyes of the club they are the sole reason for our recent success and its unthinkable they ought to be replaced. We've wasted a lot of money on this perceived idea that better squad players will give us a better chance of lasting the distance over the course of a season, rather than try and improve the XI through quality over quantity and by doing so, the squad improves anyway as the previous starting XI player who now drops to the bench becomes a better squad player than who we had previous.

 

We've also opted not to move a high value asset on last summer, trying to keep together this squad. The issue there is, we've had less money to play with and rhe players are another year older and potentially another year closer to their contracts ending. Some of these players have now been together for 3-5 years or more and are tailing off because they perhaps have gone stale here and want a new challenge. All of this adds to the pressure of slowing down the conveyor belt of squad movement to enable us to keep things fresh and the intention of evolving and trying to progress. 

 

I think we need 5-6 new players, 2 new CB's, a new CM, a right winger, back up left winger (Lookman) and then probably a better back up DCM and a full back to replace Ricardo or Castagne. All of that without the right recruitment model of unearthing the best young players at modest fees is going to cost us north of £150m.

 

I'd expect us to get £45m for Tielemans in the summer and possibly £25-30m for Soyuncu but that could be a push. Ricardo and Castagne again would be a struggle to get £20m for. Other players needing to be moved on like Perez, Mendy, Vestergaard, Praet are going to be hard to shift for any money. Praet maybe will get someone pay us £10-15m.

 

But you can see the issues we face. Then we're in the realms of cashing in on an Ndidi or Maddison or Fofana to fund further squad changes and it becomes precarious. 

 

I could sort all this for the club, but they'll not dare ask.

 

Good post ric, this summer is a massive worry, like you said we could potentially lose the spine of the team and not have the finances to rebuild, if Rodgers rebuild at Liverpool is anything to go buy we’re ****ed

[Allenho11]

9 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

It's all well and good plotting a squad overhaul but if we don't rectify the injury issues then no variation of a squad you realistically put together will be sufficient. We have to get to the bottom of that, if having no European football is the only answer then that's not acceptable either as it proves that this regime isn't suitable to match our aspirations of challenging in 4 competitions year on year.

 

I'm praying Lee Congerton is still off to Atalanta, that's gone very quiet. We need to wrestle control back from Rodgers if there's been a slip there on the clubs front. Recruitment is crucial to our progression model. We need to go back to the buy low, sell high and reinvest to maintain at the very least our foothold in the top 8-10 PL clubs in the country.

 

I'm just seeing ever so subtle problems occurring that will manifest in to something bigger. We are slowly but surely losing our successful experienced title winners whom have been valuable squad members in recent years, we are also seeing young players now in their mid twenties that have stagnated and their value will start to plummet. We've also stopped targeting unproven but talented young players in the £10-20m price bracket and instead are trying to buy proven players in the £20-30m price bracket and it's not been anymore successful.

 

What that last point does is, it constricts the asset value of the squad and makes it harder for us to make the changes to our squad both in and out. We've seen in the last 2 seasons that we've not signed the number of new players we've wanted because we've been unable to move other players on for reasonable fees to enable that. We've had very little change to our best XI because in the eyes of the club they are the sole reason for our recent success and its unthinkable they ought to be replaced. We've wasted a lot of money on this perceived idea that better squad players will give us a better chance of lasting the distance over the course of a season, rather than try and improve the XI through quality over quantity and by doing so, the squad improves anyway as the previous starting XI player who now drops to the bench becomes a better squad player than who we had previous.

 

We've also opted not to move a high value asset on last summer, trying to keep together this squad. The issue there is, we've had less money to play with and rhe players are another year older and potentially another year closer to their contracts ending. Some of these players have now been together for 3-5 years or more and are tailing off because they perhaps have gone stale here and want a new challenge. All of this adds to the pressure of slowing down the conveyor belt of squad movement to enable us to keep things fresh and the intention of evolving and trying to progress. 

 

I think we need 5-6 new players, 2 new CB's, a new CM, a right winger, back up left winger (Lookman) and then probably a better back up DCM and a full back to replace Ricardo or Castagne. All of that without the right recruitment model of unearthing the best young players at modest fees is going to cost us north of £150m.

 

I'd expect us to get £45m for Tielemans in the summer and possibly £25-30m for Soyuncu but that could be a push. Ricardo and Castagne again would be a struggle to get £20m for. Other players needing to be moved on like Perez, Mendy, Vestergaard, Praet are going to be hard to shift for any money. Praet maybe will get someone pay us £10-15m.

 

But you can see the issues we face. Then we're in the realms of cashing in on an Ndidi or Maddison or Fofana to fund further squad changes and it becomes precarious. 

 

I could sort all this for the club, but they'll not dare ask.

 

I don't think cashing in on Ndidi would hurt the club that much, this season he hasn't pulled up any trees, and we have options in that area. I'd take £45/50M for Ndidi and use it to re-invest in the areas that we need.

 

You make a few really good points, I hope that a lot of these talented players don't all want to leave at the same time. 

 

 

[-sodapop]

My view is we need a bit of a clear out and overhaul. Forgive me if below looks a bit pie in the sky, I recognise we won't do that much business. But some moves I'd like to see.

 

 

Out: (Prices are what I'd take for them)

- Mendy (£5m)

- Hopefully not, but realistically, Tielemans (£50m)

- Vestergaard (whatever we can get for him)

- Perez (£12.5m)

- Jakupovic (Free)

- Praet on a permanent (£12.5m was his buy option right?)

- Potentially Ricardo to fund some improvements elsewhere. (£25-30m)

 

In:

- A starting quality CB. A name is difficult but basically with the understanding that this signing + Fofana will be our first choices at the back, with Evans taking on the Morgan role from his last few years with the club. Soyuncu as cover. Can't really afford to get this one wrong, and it needs to (imo) be an established player. Ginter coming out of contract would be amazing business but his sights are probably set higher.

- Lookman permanent. Gerrimin. (£15m)

- Matheus Nunes at Sporting as our Youri replacement. (£25m) De Ketelaere is also an option but from what I understand he plays much further forward. Linked with him, which is exciting, but I'm worried we'll spunk our transfer budget on him when he won't play over Maddison and other areas need attention much more urgently.

- If Ricardo leaves, a young RB that can deputise Castagne and JJ - maybe Calvin Ramsay as we've been linked for peanuts. (£5m)

- If Burnley go down, Dwight McNeil for RW - he's to me a perfect Albrighton replacement. (Could easily be anything from £18-30m depending on what the situation is.)

 

 

Edited 20 January 2022 by -sodapop

[NasPb]

We've also been linked to mazraoui several times, hes a rb who's more solid on the defensive side and who can play as a cm and a lb. Free agent in summer. Maybe a potential move there 

[escape2victory]

Fingers crossed a random bundesliga club comes in for Vestergaard and a season long loan to championship side Reading has Bertrands name all over it, or QPR, in fact I had to check Wikipedia to make sure Bertrand hadn’t already played for QPR, it seems like he should of at some point 

[Ric Flair]

5 minutes ago, NasPb said:

We've also been linked to mazraoui several times, hes a rb who's more solid on the defensive side and who can play as a cm and a lb. Free agent in summer. Maybe a potential move there 

We aren't that good at getting free transfers across the line, I don't know if we baulk at the games and demands that representatives will do in these situations but other than Bertrand I don't recall any prior to the 2016/17 season. There's got to be a reason for it.

[NasPb]

6 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

We aren't that good at getting free transfers across the line, I don't know if we baulk at the games and demands that representatives will do in these situations but other than Bertrand I don't recall any prior to the 2016/17 season. There's got to be a reason for it.

This is thr type of stuff that really bugs me, we're not tapping into our full potential transfer wise. If money's an issue make smart free transfers, not signing a Danish post named Vestergaard and not a finished bertrand (though I think bertrand is more due to covid but still) 

[jeffschlupp]

There is probably half a dozen players that are not secure at the club, so difficult to predict really.

 

GK (3): Schmeichel, Ward, Jakupovic/no.3

FB (5): Ricardo, Castagne, Justin, Thomas, Bertrand

CB (5): Fofana, Soyuncu, Amartey, Evans, CB

MF (6): Ndidi, Choudhury, Tielemans replacement, Soumaré, KDH, Maddison

Wingers (4): Lookman, Barnes, Albrighton, RW

CF (3): Vardy, Iheanacho, Daka

 

So a CB/CM/RW and Lookman on a permanent sounds the bare minimum. I think if we can drastically reduce the number of injuries we will be a lot better next season, and really don't think it requires the wholesale changes others do.

 

Schmeichel; Castagne, Fofana, CB, Justin; Ndidi, CM, Maddison; RW, Vardy, Barnes is a top side if we recruit three top players.

Ward; Ricardo, Soyuncu, Evans, Thomas; Choudhury, Soumaré, KDH; Albrighton, Iheanacho/Daka; Lookman as a second string is also a good team, with Amartey also there.

 

Ricardo, Evans and Soyuncu will be important as to any more business aside from CB/CM/RW/Lookman, I think. If Ricardo and Evans can have a good pre-season and prove their fitness they can still be important to us, Soyuncu I think needs a break.

 

Praet/Perez/Mendy/Vestergaard can all go as far as I'm concerned.

 

Think we can register 25 + Thomas in the league next season given 2001 will be the new cut-off date for U21s, so a squad size of 26 looks about right if not in Europe.

[An Sionnach]

I wouldn't write off Caglar and Ricci based on this rather disjointed season. We have all seen them play to a very high standard. Jonny is not looking good but could be replaced with Tarkowski if we offer him the best contract. I have mentioned Elmas , he could certainly replace Tielemans if he can be persuaded that we are an ambitious club. That might involve 10 million more than what we could get for Youri . Otherwise achieving 40 million or so for fringe players would finance the right sort of wide midfielder. Amartey and Hamza have upped their value recently and Praet is playing better I believe so that might be possible.