Starting XI + Subs

[Finnegan]

There's surely very little chance of the squad looking exactly like this at the moment. 

 

That said:

 

Mads, 

Ricky, Nelson, Souttar, JJ,

Winks, Skipp, 

Fatawu, Bilal, Mavididi, 

Daka 

 

Monga starting the season on the bench but if Mavididi's form doesn't get back to where it was last time in the Championship I could see them swapping. 

 

That team, well managed, gets you top two before a points deduction. The complete lack of depth if anyone, especially at the top end of the pitch, gets injured is seriously concerning. 

 

Even I'd rather we replaced Daka though. But suggesting you do it with Ayew is just daft. 

 

[Merchant_Banker]

12 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

There's surely very little chance of the squad looking exactly like this at the moment. 

 

That said:

 

Mads, 

Ricky, Nelson, Souttar, JJ,

Winks, Skipp, 

Fatawu, Bilal, Mavididi, 

Daka 

 

Monga starting the season on the bench but if Mavididi's form doesn't get back to where it was last time in the Championship I could see them swapping. 

 

That team, well managed, gets you top two before a points deduction. The complete lack of depth if anyone, especially at the top end of the pitch, gets injured is seriously concerning. 

 

Even I'd rather we replaced Daka though. But suggesting you do it with Ayew is just daft. 

 

Souttar is out until end of year, I would play Okoli based purely on pre-season and would keep Thomas at LB.

[Finnegan]

2 minutes ago, Merchant_Banker said:

Souttar is out until end of year, I would play Okoli based purely on pre-season and would keep Thomas at LB.

 

Oops, good point. I'd play Okoli purely because I'm absolutely fed up of Vestergaard and Faes but I'm not entirely convinced he's better. 

 

None of Okoli, Faes or Vestergaard can win a header to save their lives and it does concern me. 

 

[slymunn]

29 minutes ago, les-tah said:

Curious..For this years best 11 and signings from a PSR perspective if we kept the spend to a minimum and loaned in the important players like a starting striker and centre mid that are levels above what we have already does that mean “if” we get promoted would we have a huge premier league budget as we can spend 2 seasons worth of money? Or does it not work like that and we are better off spreading it over 2 seasons?

Depends on how much you are up on PSR. If we still have all the high earners that eats into the money as much as signing players on lower wages. 

 

Faes, Coady and Vesty last season was on close to 200k a week, or 10.4 million in wages for example. If you could sell them at break even on PSR for them, you have 10.4 million extra on this years books for signings/wages...two 10 million, or one 20 million pound player would cost 4 million on the books, so you are up 6.4 million before the wages that player(s) would get. Or you could bank that money and it gained for next season.

[AKCJ]

On 13/07/2025 at 09:24, Mark said:

We can't go into the season starting Ayew up front if we do we've failed again

I would be happy to go into the season with Daka/Ayew if if it means we can afford to keep El Khannouss and Hermansen.

[Bluearmyfox28]

Based of current squad and the expectation that Mads has left or isn’t fit, for the first game of the season I would go with this. Fatawu is on the bench as I don’t think he’ll be ready for 90 minutes and Monga on the right instead of Alves (they don’t have Monga’s profile on there yet.

 

Bench:

Bausor

Aluko

Thomas

Skipp

Page

McAteer

Alves

Fatawu

Daka

 

No space for Faes, Coady, Vestergaard, VK, Soumare or BDCR. Send a message to both players and agents that there future isn’t at the club.