The playing squad is a disgusting mess

[Sly]

Rudkin and Top have a thread about them.

 

RVN has quite a few about him. 

The state of the stadium and the will it / won’t it expansion has one. 
 

What we don’t have is one about the absolute honking state of our squad.

 

If you’re struggling with finances, literally trim it to the bare bones and get rid of the players either on whatever we can or free transfers, then back fill the spaces with the next generation of talent. 
 

Why we’ve turned bids down for the likes of Iversen when he doesn’t get a look in is just bizarre. The match day squad is 20 players, we don’t need a 4th choice goalkeeper pulling half a million a year in wages. 

 

4 x Goalkeepers

Hermansen, Stolarkzyk, Ward, Iversen.

We need 2 and a youth player can be third choice. We can loan an emergency if it fails outside the window! We’d be saving well over £1m a year in wages on keepers alone if we cut it to two. 
 

11 x Defenders

Ricardo, Justin, Coulibaly, Faes, Vestergaard, Nelson, Coady, Souttar, Okoli, Thomas, Kristiansen.

 

Again, work on the logic that two for every position, then we need eight. Why we had two right backs and then signed a third who looks equally as inept at defending is nuts. I know technically Souttar and Nelson are on loan, however in on our dire financial state, if we can’t sell players, just use what you’ve got rather than adding to the financial burden. Oxford and Sheffield United aren’t covering full wages for our players. We’d save £7 - £9 million here per season just by cutting our cloth accordingly. 
 

13 x Midfielders

Winks, Skipp, Ndidi, Soumare, Fatawu, Reid, Ayew, El Khannous, McAteer, Buonanotte, Choudhury, Alves and Braybrooke.

 

That list of players, does lack that extra ability when compared to other Premier League teams. If we’re playing a 5 man midfield (including the wingers if you like), then why do we have so many centrally based players? It’s imbalanced. Including Braybrooke and Alves may be a little harsh, however one should be getting first team minutes with us this season. That’s before you get into including the likes of Evans, Cover, Monga, Cartwright, Thomas etc We should be running with 10 players and you’d cut another £8m - £10m off the wage bill per year here. 
 

3 x Strikers

Vardy, Daka, Edouard

We’ve typically played one. If you’re in a financial mess, you don’t sign an Edouard on loan to put him on the shelf just in case you need him. Use a bloody youth player, they’ll have contributed to the the overall points tally as much as he has this season so far. Just make Evans the third choice. 
 

Strikers are expensive so we’d be saving another £4m - £5m per season here by cutting it down one. 
 

I know this is written in hindsight but when you’re financially challenged, trimming a bloated squad simply saves £20m - £25m per season based on fag packet math. £75m over the course of a PSR period. 
 

Maybe I’m looking at it too simplistic but at the same time we’d also be blooding and generating talent to sell. 

Edited 14 March by Sly

[adam95581]

Appreciate you’ve tried to make this about the squad, but it still comes back to Rudkin.
 

The issue you’ve highlighted is about our bloated squad - this has come about as a result of us recruiting terribly for years, not being able to shift poor players on high wages and have therefore not having had the financial headroom to invest. 

[Gazza M]

As mentioned many times. Many are on a wage much higher than ability. If your level is supermarket stacker and someone is paying you 4 or 5 quid above min wage, you aren't upping sticks to go to another on min wage. That is all on Rudkin and man child. 

[davieG]

55 minutes ago, adam95581 said:

Appreciate you’ve tried to make this about the squad, but it still comes back to Rudkin.
 

The issue you’ve highlighted is about our bloated squad - this has come about as a result of us recruiting terribly for years, not being able to shift poor players on high wages and have therefore not having had the financial headroom to invest. 

Aye you can only blame the players for not trying, you can't blame them for being here or how much they cost and there's plenty of threads on those seemingly uncommitted or simply not giving it their all.

[davieG]

56 minutes ago, Gazza M said:

As mentioned many times. Many are on a wage much higher than ability. If your level is supermarket stacker and someone is paying you 4 or 5 quid above min wage, you aren't upping sticks to go to another on min wage. That is all on Rudkin and man child. 

As said previously we're paying them as if they are top six players and we've been running the club as if we're a permanent member of the 6.

[Pliskin]

I don’t know what’s worse this season, the football, or multiple threads being opened about the same topic 😂

[murphy]

1 hour ago, Pliskin said:

I don’t know what’s worse this season, the football, or multiple threads being opened about the same topic 😂

I can help here.  It's the football.  Definitely the football. 

[Globalfox]

The good news is that assuming we don’t renew stupidly as before we easy lose 14 million at the end of the season. Plan should Beto move another 6 million and then rebuild. Our biggest challenge is that in the current view we have zero strikers so biggest focus.

[jayfox26]

Rudkin logic:

 

We have too many keepers. We can sell Mads and make some decent money. Keep Jakub as number one and then I've got an amazing idea. We can save money by not signing a back up keeper. We can offer Danny Ward a new 5 year deal. 

 

I'm a genius! 

[Lambert09]

5 hours ago, Gazza M said:

As mentioned many times. Many are on a wage much higher than ability. If your level is supermarket stacker and someone is paying you 4 or 5 quid above min wage, you aren't upping sticks to go to another on min wage. That is all on Rudkin and man child. 

All

[sylofox]

1 hour ago, jayfox26 said:

Rudkin logic:

 

We have too many keepers. We can sell Mads and make some decent money. Keep Jakub as number one and then I've got an amazing idea. We can save money by not signing a back up keeper. We can offer Danny Ward a new 5 year deal. 

 

I'm a genius! 

You're a cvnt 😆 🤣 😂 😹 😆 🤣 😂 😹 😆 

[iancognito]

TBF most of the issues covered here are in the other topics and most of the individual player threads.

 

A lot of them are still here owing simply to the fact we pay them too much. You mention we turned down bids for Iversen but three clubs all pulled out of deals because they couldn't meet his terms - ie 50k a week. Same with Ward who even told his international manager he was prepared to gamble his squad place because of "his situation".

 

Our horrendous wage bill is a big reason we'll continue to either breach PSR or walk the tightrope every season. And as others have mentioned, this collection or overpaid rejects and mercenaries was assembled by one man, not just just assembled in some cases actually re-signed.

[The boy Linacre]

2 hours ago, Globalfox said:

The good news is that assuming we don’t renew stupidly as before we easy lose 14 million at the end of the season. Plan should Beto move another 6 million and then rebuild. Our biggest challenge is that in the current view we have zero strikers so biggest focus.

Vestergaard & Choudry last season, renewed stupidly when performing at LOWER level, having failed at a HIGHER level REPEATEDLY

[honeybradger]

If rumours are to be believed we were looking at buying another goalkeeper in January as well. 

[Chrysalis]

I agree with the OP of course, but another point is we tend to focus on defenders over forward players, when people say we lack quality, they mean in the forward area, as no matter how good you are defending, if you cant score then you cant win games.  I have moaned in the past that every summer we always seem to have CB or wing back as priority.

[murphy]

8 minutes ago, Chrysalis said:

I agree with the OP of course, but another point is we tend to focus on defenders over forward players, when people say we lack quality, they mean in the forward area, as no matter how good you are defending, if you cant score then you cant win games.  I have moaned in the past that every summer we always seem to have CB or wing back as priority.

When people say we lack quality they mean everywhere. 

 

Also we bought or loaned many more forward players than defenders on the summer. 

[ParkerPen]

this topic title makes me laugh out loud.

 

its funny cos its true !

[Winstonthedog]

3 hours ago, jayfox26 said:

Rudkin logic:

 

We have too many keepers. We can sell Mads and make some decent money. Keep Jakub as number one and then I've got an amazing idea. We can save money by not signing a back up keeper. We can offer Danny Ward a new 5 year deal. 

 

I'm a genius! 

Only a 5 year deal .... should be looking at 10 years to completely be certain of a total f**k up

[Trav Le Bleu]

3 hours ago, Chrysalis said:

I agree with the OP of course, but another point is we tend to focus on defenders over forward players, when people say we lack quality, they mean in the forward area, as no matter how good you are defending, if you cant score then you cant win games.  I have moaned in the past that every summer we always seem to have CB or wing back as priority.

Defenders stop you losing matches; forwards win you matches.

 

If your frontline is excellent, then you don't need to worry about your defence so much. In fact, watching teams with great forwards and poor defenders is highly entertaining!

 

[Wasyls Pec Deck]

It is totally ridiculous how we’ve regressed to this squad. Even more ridiculous that the person overseeing it is carrying on as usual.

[Lesterlad]

11 hours ago, Sly said:

Rudkin and Top have a thread about them.

 

RVN has quite a few about him. 

The state of the stadium and the will it / won’t it expansion has one. 
 

What we don’t have is one about the absolute honking state of our squad.

 

If you’re struggling with finances, literally trim it to the bare bones and get rid of the players either on whatever we can or free transfers, then back fill the spaces with the next generation of talent. 
 

Why we’ve turned bids down for the likes of Iversen when he doesn’t get a look in is just bizarre. The match day squad is 20 players, we don’t need a 4th choice goalkeeper pulling half a million a year in wages. 

 

4 x Goalkeepers

Hermansen, Stolarkzyk, Ward, Iversen.

We need 2 and a youth player can be third choice. We can loan an emergency if it fails outside the window! We’d be saving well over £1m a year in wages on keepers alone if we cut it to two. 
 

11 x Defenders

Ricardo, Justin, Coulibaly, Faes, Vestergaard, Nelson, Coady, Souttar, Okoli, Thomas, Kristiansen.

 

Again, work on the logic that two for every position, then we need eight. Why we had two right backs and then signed a third who looks equally as inept at defending is nuts. I know technically Souttar and Nelson are on loan, however in on our dire financial state, if we can’t sell players, just use what you’ve got rather than adding to the financial burden. Oxford and Sheffield United aren’t covering full wages for our players. We’d save £7 - £9 million here per season just by cutting our cloth accordingly. 
 

13 x Midfielders

Winks, Skipp, Ndidi, Soumare, Fatawu, Reid, Ayew, El Khannous, McAteer, Buonanotte, Choudhury, Alves and Braybrooke.

 

That list of players, does lack that extra ability when compared to other Premier League teams. If we’re playing a 5 man midfield (including the wingers if you like), then why do we have so many centrally based players? It’s imbalanced. Including Braybrooke and Alves may be a little harsh, however one should be getting first team minutes with us this season. That’s before you get into including the likes of Evans, Cover, Monga, Cartwright, Thomas etc We should be running with 10 players and you’d cut another £8m - £10m off the wage bill per year here. 
 

3 x Strikers

Vardy, Daka, Edouard

We’ve typically played one. If you’re in a financial mess, you don’t sign an Edouard on loan to put him on the shelf just in case you need him. Use a bloody youth player, they’ll have contributed to the the overall points tally as much as he has this season so far. Just make Evans the third choice. 
 

Strikers are expensive so we’d be saving another £4m - £5m per season here by cutting it down one. 
 

I know this is written in hindsight but when you’re financially challenged, trimming a bloated squad simply saves £20m - £25m per season based on fag packet math. £75m over the course of a PSR period. 
 

Maybe I’m looking at it too simplistic but at the same time we’d also be blooding and generating talent to sell. 

Yes but we have Rudkin

[murphy]

4 hours ago, Chrysalis said:

I agree with the OP of course, but another point is we tend to focus on defenders over forward players, when people say we lack quality, they mean in the forward area, as no matter how good you are defending, if you cant score then you cant win games.  I have moaned in the past that every summer we always seem to have CB or wing back as priority.

 

We lack quality everywhere.

 

Your assertion that we tend to focus on bringing in defenders over forwards doesn't seem to bear scrutiny either (unless I'm missing some).  We're just not very good at it.

 

Summer 23 and 24 incomings:                                                                                       

 

 

Defensive                           Forward                      Neither                                                               

 

Coady                                 Cannon                         Winks

Doyle (loan)                       Mavididi                       Caseidei (loan)

Okoli                                    Ayew                            Skipp                                                                       

                                             BDCR                                                                          

                                             Edouard (loan)                                                                                                      

                                             BEK                                                                                             

                                             Bounanotte (loan)

                                             Fatawu

[Clever Fox]

We need to clear the decks first in the summer regardless of what it costs us. Just get the imposters out of the Club.

 

The next biggest problem is,  It's going to be difficult to attract good players to the Club. 

 

I'd settle for a season or two in the Championship if we're building properly. 

 

 

[honeybradger]

1 hour ago, Clever Fox said:

We need to clear the decks first in the summer regardless of what it costs us. Just get the imposters out of the Club.

 

The next biggest problem is,  It's going to be difficult to attract good players to the Club. 

 

I'd settle for a season or two in the Championship if we're building properly. 

 

 

Just play our academy players. A transfer embargo might be the best thing to happen to the club, stops us bringing in PL experienced tossers who play like theyre just breaking into senior football.

[DJW1]

I  would like to se a combination of young players brought up from within the club, several signings of promising players from the lower divisions and say half of the present squad.

In the Championship we will be one of the bigger fish and may be able to attract such players. If we sign 6 such players for 15 million (total) and only 1 makes it then we recoup the outlay.

The other half of the present squad should be sold/released/loaned out, if possible. 

If we are mid-table all next season but show promise for the future then I will be satisfied.