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.

[gpike]

Caught the Ipswich game and thought Delap was pony. I know he has nothing to play for but he is not particularly quick does not hold the ball up very well. .lf 16 clubs are up for him I would leave them to it

[eusebiovic]

I would take Kelleher and Nunez

Jota is a sicknote and Diaz is pretty average...I like Rayan Cherki from Lyon not sure if they have paid us for Benny yet so there might be traction there.

[LJC]

Hypothetically and second guessing the next headline to come out of the newspapers… Liverpool are back rumoured to be in for Kudus at the same time they are ready to let Nunez, Diaz and Jota leave. I know it very rarely happens but you know we will be linked with players plus cash. So would you do it and who and how much?

[Manuel]

Yep we have to sell to new players a team that looks like being in a relegation fight to get midtable safety. It ain't going to be easy to get new players and it ain't going to be easy getting the number of new players we need to form a good team.
Over to you Potter.

Yep, it's a massive job, and as you say being 17th ain't gonna help attract good players. up to 14 are possibly going out and fuck knows who or how many come in. The other big question for me is how many of the youngsters, if any, will be ready next season? Potts, Orford, Earthy, Casey etc, is Scarles good enough? If they are that can obviously help to replace outgoings, but they have to be good enough or we sink further.

[Mex Martillo]

Yep we have to sell to new players a team that looks like being in a relegation fight to get midtable safety. It ain't going to be easy to get new players and it ain't going to be easy getting the number of new players we need to form a good team.
Over to you Potter.

[Manuel]

In simple terms we are now back as a club that we were before those 3 years in Europe etc. hard to see much better than mid table anytime soon. Crowds will drop off too.

[Sydney_Iron]

Not sure we are folding anytime soon, revenue seems pretty good, but not sure we have much to be optimistic about if anything we are just a fodder club in the PL era, no better than Fulham or Crystal Palace when it comes to other London clubs.

We spend most seasons in the bottom half, been relegated twice since 2000, sack pretty much every manager we have, only exceptions have been Harry who Walked, BFS and our other most successful manger in the PL era who left last season when his contract was up having won a 3rd tier European competition and in the 4 season he was in charge got us to the dizzy heights of 2 top 8 finishes which in the scale of things was us overachieving, yeah yeah the football was shit but you get the gist of what level we REALY are. 

Anytime we have decent players be they home grown or do well you can be sure the "bigger clubs" will get them and we will piss most of the money up against a wall, and even though we may have a lot out of contract this summer it won't surprise me to see us offer some of them new contracts if it means we don't have to splash too much cash.

More of the same next season, and fuck knows what happens with Potter but if he goes or gets the boot (only matter of time) then apart from journeymen of Johnny foreigner on an earner we won't get much better i doubt, see we have thread about Allegri, do me a favour

Will always be a fan but fuck me its hard at times, getting close to 60 years of in the main dire shit and some fans still bang on about winning the World Cup (1966) etc, that's getting really long in the tooth now.

always been an optimist when it comes to West Ham but this season has sucked the life out of me, miserable is how i would sum it up with not much better next season i wouldn't bet.

COYI

[Manuel]

I think most of us can see where this is likely going to go. Almost certain relegation next year. 


 

I'm going bigger that that, I can see the club folding next year. We're done.

[Massive Attack]

Forest fans probably thought similar come the end of a miserable season last year for them and now look at them, 4th bottom to the top 4 in the space of 1 season based mainly off 1 summer window. Point being it can be salvaged with some decent recruitment and a manager who can extract more from what he's currently getting from them. Admittedly it's not a quality Squad overall but there are some decent gems like Bowen amongst them that's also interspersed with some decent Pro's too like Soucek you cpukd really do amongst your Squad with the qualities he has in setting the right example.

Having gone through the Squad I've managed to divide between who's been pulling their weight and applied themselves well this season and the ones that haven't for a number of reasons listed so to weed out the good from the bad in relation to Fullkrugs recent outburst..  


Consistent performers with the right mentality: 


Bowen
Wan-bissaka
Soucek
Scarles  


Model Pros with a good attitude who haven't consistently performed, been available or getting old: 

Ward-Prowse 
Fullkrug
Emerson
Summerville 
Coufal
Fabianski
Cresswell
Antonio


 Weak poor mentality or suspect temperament as well as generally underperformed:  

Kudus
Todibo
Areola
Paqueta
Alvarez
Kilman
Soler
Rodriguez
Guilherme
Mavropanos   


It just goes to show how much surgical work (literally in some players cases - Fullkrug/Todibo/Antonio) is actually needed to improve the make up of the Squad in replacing old age, reliability and that have the right mentality for this Club.  Not all the ones that are in the bottom category are a lost cause if they can seriously buck their ideas up as the likes of Kudus and Paqueta have previously proved they can be a real asset when they have the right attitude in a previous season, but for others it doesn't look so good when all they've mostly contributed is either fighting (Todibo), unreliability in playing (Alvarez suspensions) or not enough good performances to justify keeping them (Soler). 

[Full Claret Jacket]

I think most of us can see where this is likely going to go. Almost certain relegation next year. We are going to have a huge fire sale, pension off the rest of the fringe players and end up with a team of average new players who have been picked by Sullivan and his mates with some cheap kids mixed in. 
As we do every time, West Ham manages to totally screw up opportunities to grow as a club. We won a European trophy and got into the Europa league but failed to build on this by getting quality players. Too much loyalty to old players for too long and no strategy to get players that fit a system. Was there more than one signing we made this season that was a success? I can only think of Wan Bissaka having any impact.

I want to be positive, I was at the beginning of this year. I thought a fresh manager, a number of signings that looked decent on paper would put us well in the top half and throw up some memorable performances. What we've had is poor disjointed performances, underperforming players, long term injuries, appalling defending and attitude and one of the slowest teams in the league. 

I don't want to throw Bowen under the bus here as I always feel he puts the shirt on with pride and battles away but he isn't the captain and leader that seems to inspire and get a reaction from his team mates. You need someone who isn't afraid to call players out and to get them thinking about their own performances. It's too cosy a ride for many of these players. 

There won't be many players rushing to come here unless they are either pretty useless and nobody else in a decent league is willing to risk an offer, they are from lower leagues and want us as a stepping stone or we are offering way over the odds of what they are worth. I just cannot see us being an attractive club in our current predicament. 

[Keep dreaming]

We need more than a really good window. We need a fucking miracle together with lightning hitting Sullivan's big fat head.

[nychammer]

Agree Eusebiovic, Sullivan, a narcissist like Trump, will never change, cannot be wrong. It will take another unintended accident ( like with the brief Moyes/COVID/Europe/Conf lge win) for us to get any success again.  

Relegation the most likely outcome as things stand.  An inconvenient albeit realistic truth. 

True - we need a really good window, and we rarely do really good windows. The signings have to be hits, we cant afford another single expensive dud. This form has to change, its rock bottom form and if nothing changes I think you can bet on a real scrap next year to avoid the drop. 

I hope upon hope that we are out there scoping the right signings and that we pay the asking price or at least don't piss off the selling club and player to the point they don't want to do business. 

[Sir Alf]

Agree Eusebiovic, Sullivan, a narcissist like Trump, will never change, cannot be wrong. It will take another unintended accident ( like with the brief Moyes/COVID/Europe/Conf lge win) for us to get any success again.  

Relegation the most likely outcome as things stand.  An inconvenient albeit realistic truth. 

[eusebiovic]

How do you solve a problem like David Sullivan?

There is no solution - We're fucked. 

I think that our youth players Casey, Earthy, Orford Potts, Scarles probably all need another season in the championship to develop further. Nobody wants to go down though... that's a given.

It wouldn't be unlike our chairman to do that... he's always had form for clearing the decks and coming back up...even in his Birmingham days.

[Keep dreaming]

I agree with the numbers of players needed (7-8).

That number alone is catastrophic!
To put yourself in a position where 2/3 of the first XI must be replaced is mismanagement at the highest extent.

Tanks Sullivan and Moyes! Well done!

[Eerie Decent]

He's taken us from an under-performing club in 13th, to relegation fodder down to 17th, which a Brazilian international central midfielder with over 50 caps, the current Mexico captain with nearly 100 caps, England international Jarrod Bowen, Kudus who has a £85 - £100 release clause and looked to be going for that at one point, AWB who everyone on here said should be starting for England, Todibo who nearly signed for Juventus, German international striker, a young striker he wanted who was rated at £100mil in the past.

You think replacing most of them with a few kids and Championship players is going to improve us?

We ain't getting Delap or David, btw. Neither are going to join the team who finishes this season in 17th fucking place in the Premier League, under a manager who's sides in the past, and his current side, are scared to fucking shoot.

Hahaha yep twist everything I’ve said! I’m pretty certain I said the starting 11 needs addressing but keep making stuff up.

I love how you make everything black and white. You do realise there is so much more at play than that don’t you? Your Brazilian International, Mexican Captain and Kudus have been shit under 3 different managers now. Agreed they have had a rare couple of good games but that could be down to numerous well known reasons manager, betting scandle, head turned, wrong formations, shit team mates.

If you can’t understand why Potter has struggled with the players he has and why we have dropped then I don’t think you really understand football. Do I think Potter is the best manager? No not at all. Do I think he is the best fit for where we are? Yes totally. On that basis I think we need to back him. I actually think Paqueta and Kudus are holding us back as they are in the wrong team. Put them in livepool or city and they would succeed. Here we need to cash in and build a young team in the Potter image.

That aged well.

[Eerie Decent]

Kilman is worse than Mavropanos.

Mavropanos is error prone because he dives in, but he's brave, albeit naive. He fronts up.

Kilman, on the other hand, commits the crime of all crimes on a football pitch. He hides when it really matters.

How the fuck he was ever made captain at Wolves is beyond fathomable.

[Full Claret Jacket]

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.

I agree the Kilman deal was horrific. He is bang average and would struggle in Championship side. No positional sense and poor in the air. Nobody is taking him off us. 

[Sir Alf]

Based on today and the way Potter wants us to play with controlled possession, we would have to replace almost everyone.

Areola - keep but bring in another younger GK to challenge him
Coufal - love the attitude, effort but unfortunately not up to the standard we need even as a back up RB
AWB - HOTY keep
Todibo - lethargic and not physically commanding enough but keep as he is comfortable with the ball
Kilman - I think he has been poor for many weeks and no better today.  Only seems suited to a back 3 and painfully slow.  We are forced to keep him due to the silly money we paid for him
Mavro - looking better than Kilman currently but no more than a squad man for me. Get offered decent money then let him go.
Emerson - sell but only if we get another left back in because Scarles aint ready ( may never be ) to be our first choice imo
Soler - not strong enough for the Premier League - ditch
Alvarez - not quick enough for the Premier League and could raise funds - Sell
Soucek - like Coufal, great attitude, been a good servant but sell while we can get money for him
Paqueta - would keep but suspect he will want out if cleared of betting wrongdoings
Irvine - sell for whatever we can get
JWP - like Kilman, paid too much for a 30 year old, keep but as squad back up
Kudus - sell for as much as possible as his stock is plummeting fast
Bowen - keep of course
Fullkrug - keep
Guilehme - keep as he is so young
Summerville - keep
Antonio - depends on if he can recover but realistically needs to be let go
Ings - let go
Guido - let go for any fee we can get 

Thats about 8 or so we keep.   A major rebuild needed not a tweak Mr Potter!

[nychammer]

We need a new Chairman, New Manager and about 7-8 players.

[Manuel]

He's taken us from an under-performing club in 13th, to relegation fodder down to 17th, which a Brazilian international central midfielder with over 50 caps, the current Mexico captain with nearly 100 caps, England international Jarrod Bowen, Kudus who has a £85 - £100 release clause and looked to be going for that at one point, AWB who everyone on here said should be starting for England, Todibo who nearly signed for Juventus, German international striker, a young striker he wanted who was rated at £100mil in the past.

You think replacing most of them with a few kids and Championship players is going to improve us?

We ain't getting Delap or David, btw. Neither are going to join the team who finishes this season in 17th fucking place in the Premier League, under a manager who's sides in the past, and his current side, are scared to fucking shoot.

What a very silly post ED, for starters the Mexican yellow card can fuck off and the frog at the back makes Andy Carroll look healthy.

[LJC]

He's taken us from an under-performing club in 13th, to relegation fodder down to 17th, which a Brazilian international central midfielder with over 50 caps, the current Mexico captain with nearly 100 caps, England international Jarrod Bowen, Kudus who has a £85 - £100 release clause and looked to be going for that at one point, AWB who everyone on here said should be starting for England, Todibo who nearly signed for Juventus, German international striker, a young striker he wanted who was rated at £100mil in the past.

You think replacing most of them with a few kids and Championship players is going to improve us?

We ain't getting Delap or David, btw. Neither are going to join the team who finishes this season in 17th fucking place in the Premier League, under a manager who's sides in the past, and his current side, are scared to fucking shoot.

Hahaha yep twist everything I’ve said! I’m pretty certain I said the starting 11 needs addressing but keep making stuff up.

I love how you make everything black and white. You do realise there is so much more at play than that don’t you? Your Brazilian International, Mexican Captain and Kudus have been shit under 3 different managers now. Agreed they have had a rare couple of good games but that could be down to numerous well known reasons manager, betting scandle, head turned, wrong formations, shit team mates.

If you can’t understand why Potter has struggled with the players he has and why we have dropped then I don’t think you really understand football. Do I think Potter is the best manager? No not at all. Do I think he is the best fit for where we are? Yes totally. On that basis I think we need to back him. I actually think Paqueta and Kudus are holding us back as they are in the wrong team. Put them in livepool or city and they would succeed. Here we need to cash in and build a young team in the Potter image.

[Eerie Decent]

He's taken us from an under-performing club in 13th, to relegation fodder down to 17th, which a Brazilian international central midfielder with over 50 caps, the current Mexico captain with nearly 100 caps, England international Jarrod Bowen, Kudus who has a £85 - £100 release clause and looked to be going for that at one point, AWB who everyone on here said should be starting for England, Todibo who nearly signed for Juventus, German international striker, a young striker he wanted who was rated at £100mil in the past.

You think replacing most of them with a few kids and Championship players is going to improve us?

We ain't getting Delap or David, btw. Neither are going to join the team who finishes this season in 17th fucking place in the Premier League, under a manager who's sides in the past, and his current side, are scared to fucking shoot.

[LJC]

If you went with the people where apparently we have hope of signing and yes it’s the media and a lot of it is complete bull we could line up like this:

Trafford

Harwood-Bellis, Webster, Killman

AWB Scarles

Bellingham, JWP, Rigg

Bowen, Summerville

Delap/David

I haven’t done the formatting right but you know who plays where. That’s alot better starting 11. KWP on the bench with youth.

Actually maybe still light in midfield but I’m not a manager so actually ignore me.

[Manuel]

I mean I don’t know a lot about the youths but pushing to be squad players surely have to be Earthy, Potts, Orford, Casey, Ajala, Guilherme, get the Celtic kid in on a free Cummings? I’m pretty sure everyone would be happy if they were all on the bench? Or atleast the majority.





 

Only if they're good enough though, no?

Yeah totally. Like I say I don’t know much/enough about the youths and so would need others that do to put me straight. I just don’t think the squad overhaul is as drastic as people think. I think the first eleven is where the issue is and can be corrected with 5/6 good first team starters. The biggest overhaul is the amount of players going out but we have so much shit and deadwood that I don’t think they would be missed. I mean ings, Irving, Antonio, fab, cornet, aguerd etc etc have not played so so what if they go?

 

 

Yep and for me this is where the optimism lies for me. Is our team/squad going to be much better (and younger) come the end of August? For me, definitely. It doesn't guarantee anything of course, but it should give us some hope.

I read that Aguerd has been injured, btw.