Squad Building for 25/26

[southbankbornnbred]

Good summary Nutsin. Potter reverted to a back 4 and got central midfield wrong relying on the slowest double pivot central midfield in the Premiership. A back 3 seems a better fit but also when Paqueta dropped deeper we had 3 in the central mid and stopped Brentford having so much space to run into when they countered. As u say, Paqueta has to play deeper with the game ahead of him.

Not writing Potter off yet but he has to learn we cannot  play a 2 person central midfield of Alvarez and Soucek and that Mavro in a 4 man back 4 us going to be risky. Hopefully wont see either mistakes repeated?  Main other thing we need is Ferguson and Todibo to get and stay fit

Yeah, interesting summaries, Alf and Nutsin.

I also think it’s far too early to judge Potter. These are not his players and there’s just no way he’d have signed most of them. I’m not saying he’ll rip it up at West Ham (who knows), but his teams don’t generally look like us right now.

This old, slow and tired squad has a LOT of problems. But by far the biggest problem I can see is in central defence.

Nutsin summed it up nicely: “Mavrapanos still getting in the side as a starter makes you wonder just how good he must show at practice all week because on match day he is always one of the worse players on the field.”

Its not that Mavrapanos is any good - he’s fucking terrible. A mistake waiting to happen. It’s just that we don’t have any depth, and the other centre halves are also woeful - or injury prone.

We’ve spent (or agreed to spend) a small  fortune on some absolute dross. Kilman is the worst £40m footballer I’ve ever seen. He has the turning circle of an oil tanker and regularly gets destroyed for pace over ten yards - let alone 20+. It means we can’t really play, or get, high up the pitch quickly enough. So he forces us to play a way that Potter probably doesn’t want. Absolute waste of that huge outlay. Slow, off the pace mentally, and too easily exposed because of it. His saving grace is that he doesn’t really make “mistakes” like Mavrapanos - and he is a battler. It’s just that his physical attributes are poor for the modern Premier League, where opponents are often athletes more than footballers.

Mavrapanos was in excess of £20m. We've agreed to spend £34m on Todibo, who is a good player but injury prone - and clearly nursing his way through the season. And we spent £30m on Aguerd who started well, deteriorated under Moyes and then got loaned out by a hopeless manager who had no idea what he was doing.

Thats £125m worth of “talent” and we’re catastrophically poor at the back.

Fixing that will take some doing. Who, for example, will want to sign Kilman at his fee/wages - unless it’s a move like a return to Wolves for half the money?

Moyes and Lopetegui royally lumped us in it.

I also have to say that Sullivan - and the departed (and largely over-rated) Steidten should hang his head in shame over the Kilman deal. How a chairman and technical director could let a new manager sign somebody so obviously limited for £40m and then put him on astronomical wages and a seven-year contract, is beyond me.

Club chairman rightly and wrongly get blamed for a lot of things - some within their control, some not. But that Kilman deal was akin to falling asleep at the wheel.

[LJC]

I see it seems we have turned our attention to have of the Sunderland squad if the media is to be believed…

 

[Manuel]

It sounds promising but not much use if the ongoing player recruitment is akin to guessing how many jelly beans are in the Kilner jar. 

As said, sounds good, but I recall a few years ago we massively trimmed our wage bill when the likes of Carroll, Hernandez, Wilshire, Dyer, Neill, Vlasic, Yarmalenko, among others, fucked off. So we've been here before.

[eusebiovic]

It sounds promising but not much use if the ongoing player recruitment is akin to guessing how many jelly beans are in the Kilner jar. 

[southbankbornnbred]

Ings, Antonio, Fabianski, Soler and Rodriguez are on very good wage deals by their age and/or standards. Let’s put it that way.

[southbankbornnbred]

No idea if that wage list doing the rounds since Coufal spoke up is accurate or not.

But IF it is, the one good thing about the summer coming up is that we will shed 26.5% of the wage bill (around 515k per week) through players being out of contract. That’s if we also offload Rodriguez on a freebie.

If we also lose Paqueta in a way that takes him off the wage bill, then that figure increases to 34.5% of the wage bill - around 665k weekly, IF those figures are close to accurate.

Which gives Potter a lot of wriggle room. Although, we might be committed to a big deal for Todibo.

[southbankbornnbred]

Somebody I know (wouldn't say he's a friend: more an acquaintance!) is currently doing some PR guff for the Saudis well ahead of their World Cup.

He says a couple of Saudi sides also want Aguerd, as well as a few Spanish teams. So we might even get a small bidding war.

[southbankbornnbred]

Dunno if Aguerd will come back this summer.

But we do have nine senior players out of contract and most of them are expensive and often older squad members (Ings, Cress etc), so we'll free up quite a bit in wages etc. Zouma is out of contract this summer, too, after we failed to sell him last year due to knee knack.

Of the nine whose contracts are up, we only have one obligation to buy - and that's Todibo.

If we did sell Aguerd, then great, although we'd need to replace him with whatever money we get. We could do with offloading Cornet, too, when he gets back from loan. We'll probably also have to make a decision about marginal players like that Brazilian centre-half (Luizao?) nobody has seen since he joined (currently on loan in Poland!), and that Kante fella that nobody has seen since somebody left him in a box on the Eurostar to Paris.

I know we're probably currently tight against FSR. But Potter will get space in the summer. He'll be shopping for younger bargains, but that's probably no bad thing. In fact, that's supposed to be his thing, isn't it?

 

[Sir Alf]

Aguerd does not want to come back so I guess he will stay and if we get 20 million or more its best for all parties? 

Agree he just struggled with the intensity, pace and physicality of the Premiership and is not suited to it

[goose]

If the €25-€30m valuation is accurate then I’d let him go. If we can’t find a decent CB for that money we may as well give up.

[Eerie Decent]

Yep, same player that left us.

Good in that non contact League, no good for the Prem. No idea why anyone thinks that'll change.

[onsideman]

I watched a fair bit of the Sociedad game last night and as far as I can tell he's just got a bit better at pointing. 

[Rossal]

Least there is hope that he will improve under Potter, a proper coach rather than have to train with Moyes every week. It's a gamble to keep him as his stock is high at the moment, but if we do sell him for say £20m who do we get for that who is better? 

[Manuel]

As with JWP I'm not against Aguerd coming back and having a go with Potter, rag dolled or not we've seen way smaller CB's in the PL down the years do well, but this perception by some that he will come back and be a sensation is baffling, I'm more talking about comments I've seen elsewhere, YT etc. The fella has now morphed into Franco Baresi

[Eerie Decent]

Not a big surprise that, Stu.

It's baffling how everyone seems to think he's gonna come back from that powder puff league, at the age of 29, and somehow no longer be rag dolled every week in the Prem.

[Stuart The Slater]

I don't think its our fans, more the Spanish media have been raving about him apparently

https://breakingthelines.com/player-ana ... -sociedad/

 

Checkout the pie chart graphic towards the end where it paints a different picture of being in 25th percentile for defensive actions such as blocks interceptions and 1v1s. This is the reason he got bombed out of west ham and seems to be happening in an even easier league.

[Fauxstralian]

There was talk of Emerson going to Italy last summer
Has been way off his form of last season so seems time to move him on
Maybe look at Leif Davis of Ipswich when they are relegated

[Rossal]

Probably makes sense to cash in on Emerson, plus if his best mate Paqueta gets banned he'll be even less arsed next season.  Cash in and grab one from the Championship 

[LJC]

I wouldn’t be surprised to see Lamptey turn up.

[Manuel]

Rumours today that a few Italian clubs are interested in Emerson. 

I am sure if he can nick himself and nice tidy 3 year deal in his home country that takes him up to 34 he will jump at the chance so I fully expect him to be off. That would be the perfect situation for Scarles to become first team LB / LWB. 

Does Potter then look at extending Cresswell for year as cover for Scarles and / or the left CB position? Does Aguerd get called back to play the LCB? 

 

That would be very risky. Scarles is young and will possibly have dips in form and injuries, Cresswell would only be useful as cover for lcb, we would need another lb/lwb... W

Agree that it's too early to assume Scarles has nailed down the LB berth, but I'd still get shot of Emerson. When was the last time he had a good game, and he looks like he'd rather be elsewhere. Move him on.

[Lee Trundle]

If Emerson is off, then we need another LB (along with a striker) like we have done for every season the past 5,125,742 years.

[LJC]

And can see Aguerd given another go although I reckon we should sell whilst his stock is high.

[fraser]

Rumours today that a few Italian clubs are interested in Emerson. 

I am sure if he can nick himself and nice tidy 3 year deal in his home country that takes him up to 34 he will jump at the chance so I fully expect him to be off. That would be the perfect situation for Scarles to become first team LB / LWB. 

Does Potter then look at extending Cresswell for year as cover for Scarles and / or the left CB position? Does Aguerd get called back to play the LCB? 

 

 

That would be very risky. Scarles is young and will possibly have dips in form and injuries, Cresswell would only be useful as cover for lcb, we would need another lb/lwb... W

[LJC]

Rumours today that a few Italian clubs are interested in Emerson. 

I am sure if he can nick himself and nice tidy 3 year deal in his home country that takes him up to 34 he will jump at the chance so I fully expect him to be off. That would be the perfect situation for Scarles to become first team LB / LWB. 

Does Potter then look at extending Cresswell for year as cover for Scarles and / or the left CB position? Does Aguerd get called back to play the LCB? 

KWP on a free. Covers both sides with Coufal off and Cresswell given another year I would guess.

[Russ of the BML]

Rumours today that a few Italian clubs are interested in Emerson. 

I am sure if he can nick himself and nice tidy 3 year deal in his home country that takes him up to 34 he will jump at the chance so I fully expect him to be off. That would be the perfect situation for Scarles to become first team LB / LWB. 

Does Potter then look at extending Cresswell for year as cover for Scarles and / or the left CB position? Does Aguerd get called back to play the LCB? 

[Eerie Decent]

I only asked a question, Miike, you miserable old cuntbag.

He was good in France, shit whilst with us, and apparently doing well in Spain, not that any of our fans have actually watched him on a regular basis.

I reckon he'll have the same problems in the Prem as he had before. He was as mistake ridden as Mavropanos, and our league is far more pacey, aggressive and physical than France or Spain, which is what he struggled badly with.