Can Our Squad Be Improved

[destinydude]

a stronger team with weaker players possibly

its complicated this football malarchy

Torres gets you 30 goals but is worth 50m. There are others who'll get you the same amount of goals for less but the charisma/global following will take a toll with respect to jersey/merchandise sales.

[PTP]

we need some pace and and penertration from midfield.

For me we need a good left winger who will give some width and quality from the wide areas

An extra striker, one who can either cover or partner torres as required

thats the two priorities for me....but now I don't think we can do it with no money.

After that, it's about improving the next areas - ie better defensive and creative mids than lucas and poulsen, better competition for left back,

Admist all the doom and gloom - we still have (even if some of them are suffereing through lack of fitness/confidence/form) some top players and some promising youngsters - the issue is, for me, the players in between who are fine for squad players, but lacking if they were too be first teamers


a starting XI

--------------------reina---------------

Johnson-------carra--------agger-----------????

--------------gerrard-----meireles------------

Kuyt----------------Cole----------------????

---------------------Torres-----------------

And then a 2nd string of

-----------------------Jones-------------------

Kelly-------kyriakos/skrtel-----wilson-------Konchesky


----------------lucas/poulsen----Shelvey----------

Maxi-------------------Pacheco-----------------Babel/Jovanovic

------------------------???/Babel/ngog-----------------


it's not that bad - though a lot rests on meireles and cole hitting the ground running - we just need that extra striker and better options for left mid and up front.

The worry, and i mentioned it when the transfer windows closed, these are the 3 postions everyone of us highlighted at the end of last season, last january transfer window, and probably the transfer window before that.

The fact that we scrambled for a £3-4m? konchesky, signed an ageing left mid on a free, and closest we got to a striker was carlton cole with lucas/babel and cash going the other way! - says to me that without some good solid investment we're fooked.

[destinydude]

It all depends on how soon we move on from our static football to pass and move.

Other than Joe Cole and Gerrard I don't see anyone who can run with the ball for others to move into spaces.

Playing Kuyt and Jovanovic both at a time on the wings will kill us. Both of them can't run with the ball and hold on to it for a while or dink past players.

[CJ]

i dont think that Rafa coached to have static football his crushing machine was just the opposite.

so not sure that Roy wants static football either somehow we have ended up being static though.

[destinydude]

i dont think that Rafa coached to have static football his crushing machine was just the opposite.

so not sure that Roy wants static football either somehow we have ended up being static though.

There's a small difference there tho'. At Valencia he didn't have much of a say about the players that came in and went out. The players they had there at that time were pretty skillful players. Aimar,Vicente,Baraja,Rufete,Kily Gonzalez etc. Add to that the Spanish way of playing footy and they were well set.

Rafa came there and solidified their defense and that set off all their trophies.

Here in his final season you could see Kuyt Lucas Mascherano consistently among the players in the front 6 and sometimes even N'gog.

That's 4 players in 6 that aren't very skillful and pacy. That hurt the team a lot.

[lancinleeds]

2 weeks after the transfer window has closed and we are already talking about the next one. Can we not at least wait until the end of October when we have had a decent run of games with the new signings and then see how we feel?


...no thought not

[CJ]

well even if they play out of their skins i think we all know the squad needs improvement.

Even Chelsea look to improve (it felt bad typing that)

[danperkins]

There's a small difference there tho'. At Valencia he didn't have much of a say about the players that came in and went out. The players they had there at that time were pretty skillful players. Aimar,Vicente,Baraja,Rufete,Kily Gonzalez etc. Add to that the Spanish way of playing footy and they were well set.

Rafa came there and solidified their defense and that set off all their trophies.

Here in his final season you could see Kuyt Lucas Mascherano consistently among the players in the front 6 and sometimes even N'gog.

That's 4 players in 6 that aren't very skillful and pacy. That hurt the team a lot.

Yup Rafa came into a superb team that Hector Cuper got together, some serious talent there so he had to tools there, what i will say although i'm no Rafa fan is that he did give the club direction and their style won trophies, and that has to be applauded.

Still yet to see Big Roy put his stamp on the team, hopefully he will with all the players back and bedded in and then we can see how he sets up our side and hopefully improve the squad come January.

[DannyMan2006]

Our squad can easily be improved, just have to get lucky with any players we bring in whilst in the current financial state.

Still, if it make you feel any better - We have needed a back up striker and a top LM for the past god knows how many years and we still haven't signed one.

In fact - why the **** would that make you feel any better?

[dww]

I think the balance of our squad is wrong and getting worse. I think we could easily improve it by getting rid of the duplications and fringe players and getting in a couple of players who offered width for example. Not saying that it would be easy or foolproof but I'm not convinced we need investment to improve, although we clearly do to challenge to win things on a consistent basis.

[Rich]

Why do posters think we'd see all of the Torres money is we flogged him?

History shows this ain't happening.

Xabi Alonso sold £35m, Aquilani bought £20m
Mascherano sold £22m, Meireles bought £11m

We're seeing about 50%-60% of the money on big name sales. Flog Torres for £50m and we'd get probably £30m MAX to spend, probably less. IMO

[Vermilion]

It can be improved yes....but not to the level where we'd be perennial title contenders.

edit: sell Torres ?...pffft...lunacy imo.

[MrMichael]

Why do posters think we'd see all of the Torres money is we flogged him?

History shows this ain't happening.

Xabi Alonso sold £35m, Aquilani bought £20m
Mascherano sold £22m, Meireles bought £11m

We're seeing about 50%-60% of the money on big name sales. Flog Torres for £50m and we'd get probably £30m MAX to spend, probably less. IMO

Absolutely. Selling Torres out of choice would be madness.

If we're talking "as things stand right now" I think it'd be very very difficult to substantively improve the squad.

In the last 5 transfer windows running we have, by commonly accepted figures, made a profit in every single one. That shows that money being recouped is simply not going back into the team.

People talk of moving on more of the "chaff", but we've already done quite a bit of that, our squad is really not all that packed anymore, and considering we could play 60 odd games this year, we're already relying on some of our admittedly promising, but as yet untried youth, really coming through.

On the assumption that recently purchased players stay, the list of who we could cut in an ideal world based on ability and career performance for us is probably something like

Kyrgiakos
Skrtel
Aurelio
Lucas
Babel
Spearing
Maxi

Plus El Zhar, Aquilani and Insua who are loaned out.

I reckon we'd probably get an easy £40m for the whole lot, maybe a touch more. However, that would leave us with a chronic senior player shortage

Keeper - Reina, Jones, Galusci
Defence - Johnson, Carra, Agger, Konchesky, Wilson, Kelly
Midfield - Poulson, Merieles, Gerrard, Cole Shelvey
Attack - Kuyt, Jovanovic, Pacheco
Striker - Torres, N'gog

Not sure if I've missed anyone, but that's 14 senior players and 5 mostly untested younger ones. And, given that we have established a spending allowance of between 50-75% of money recouped, we'd have around £20-£30m with which to strengthen.

Unless there were some seriously good bosmans to be done, nope, no way we can significantly improve what we have now overall. The only thing we could do is alter the squad balance, which could improve us slightly, however how good the players we'd be able to get spending less than we brought in I really don't know.

[danperkins]

If we can offload a few heads in January i think LM shoudl be priority, followed by back up CF and then a CB. Usually higher the higher players play up the pitch the more they cost so hard to say who would be good option without knowing about funds but as for CB I'd love to see us go for Chris Samba from Blackburn, still fairly young, great in the air and good on the ground. We have missed that aerial threat and commanding presence in our defense since Sami left. Samba is gonna be snaped up by someone, guy has been putting in consistently qualilty performances for few seasons now. Wouldn't imagine he'd cost to much, well not as much as likes of Hangeland etc

[Reece]

I think we should see how Ayala gets on at Hull before spending money on any centre backs. Plus we've got Wilson too.