Thoughts for 25/26 season

[fabinho]

It's a weird one, we're running away with the league, but we need a total rebuild for next season?

I think everyone other than the most blinkered of fans would admit that we've been fortunate in that its a bit of an anomaly season. That's not to take anything away from it, we've been the most consistent, but we're the best of a bad bunch this year.

The same problems persist, we need more depth, more quality on the bench and 2 or 3 in the starting 11.

[Exiled_red]

I've seen this a lot but its not really true is it.

We "let" him or he decides to leave then he needs replaced.

Lets say we get Gordon instead or of that standard. Conservatively that's £50m and £120/wk. That roughly 320/wk over a five year contract. Salah is on £400k so if that was extended for two years at that, he's only costing £80k more than his replacement for two years.

I think it's more nuanced than that as well though for a few reasons: whether Salah stays or not he needs to be replaced at some point, be that this summer he signs a contract and we kick that can down the road, he is costing us more in wages and eating up the transfer fee for his replacement (based on the numbers you mentioned). If he signs a 2 year contract we have at best 1 year where he has a resale value, so largely the money invested into his wages is sunk. A replacement would at least have some resale value - for book keeping purposes if we sold him after 2 years he would be worth 60% of his transfer fee which would work out at about half the cost per year of keeping Salah over the 2 years.

On the other side the issue is a replacement is unlikely to replace Salah's G/A numbers, I don't think a like for like replacement is an option even if the player we bring in plays a different position (e.g. centre forward rather than out wide), so a new signing comes with a significant risk of will it work out or not. Of course the question with Salah is how long can he maintain something close to his level of recent years, if he could produce those levels for 2 years we would give him a contract but the older he gets the less likely that appears, but you could also argue that he is an outlier on such stats.

But more importantly for me I think alot of this comes down to how Slot wants to play, the forward line needs an overhaul in the summer. Salah isn't at the age where you can build a new forward line around him. We probably need to move on another couple of forwards and bring in new faces. If those are the players we want to build a side around for the foreseeable future trying to crowbar Salah in and negatively affecting the unit (whilst paying him star player type money is problematic). The guy is a legend and I would really like him to stay, but in my head this is probably where we are at at the moment.

[kemm1]

I think everyone other than the most blinkered of fans would admit that we've been fortunate in that its a bit of an anomaly season. That's not to take anything away from it, we've been the most consistent, but we're the best of a bad bunch this year.

The same problems persist, we need more depth, more quality on the bench and 2 or 3 in the starting 11.

Spot on....

[baitman]

We could give salah a two year conract, and then sell him after a year, we'd probably get 70-80M for him.

[labourRed]

We could give salah a two year conract, and then sell him after a year, we'd probably get 70-80M for him.

That's not as far fetched as it sounds.

If we had him tied down for a few years i'm sure Slot would feel like he could manage his minutes more which may not suit Salah and well, there's a big market for him.

[Deano]

I think everyone other than the most blinkered of fans would admit that we've been fortunate in that its a bit of an anomaly season. That's not to take anything away from it, we've been the most consistent, but we're the best of a bad bunch this year.

The same problems persist, we need more depth, more quality on the bench and 2 or 3 in the starting 11.

Spot on

[BobTheCharmer]

I think everyone other than the most blinkered of fans would admit that we've been fortunate in that its a bit of an anomaly season. That's not to take anything away from it, we've been the most consistent, but we're the best of a bad bunch this year.

The same problems persist, we need more depth, more quality on the bench and 2 or 3 in the starting 11.

Oh come on. We've been both brilliant and scintillating throughout the season. Almost untouchable.

[The_weatherman]

I think it's more nuanced than that as well though for a few reasons: whether Salah stays or not he needs to be replaced at some point, be that this summer he signs a contract and we kick that can down the road, he is costing us more in wages and eating up the transfer fee for his replacement (based on the numbers you mentioned). If he signs a 2 year contract we have at best 1 year where he has a resale value, so largely the money invested into his wages is sunk. A replacement would at least have some resale value - for book keeping purposes if we sold him after 2 years he would be worth 60% of his transfer fee which would work out at about half the cost per year of keeping Salah over the 2 years.

On the other side the issue is a replacement is unlikely to replace Salah's G/A numbers, I don't think a like for like replacement is an option even if the player we bring in plays a different position (e.g. centre forward rather than out wide), so a new signing comes with a significant risk of will it work out or not. Of course the question with Salah is how long can he maintain something close to his level of recent years, if he could produce those levels for 2 years we would give him a contract but the older he gets the less likely that appears, but you could also argue that he is an outlier on such stats.

But more importantly for me I think alot of this comes down to how Slot wants to play, the forward line needs an overhaul in the summer. Salah isn't at the age where you can build a new forward line around him. We probably need to move on another couple of forwards and bring in new faces. If those are the players we want to build a side around for the foreseeable future trying to crowbar Salah in and negatively affecting the unit (whilst paying him star player type money is problematic). The guy is a legend and I would really like him to stay, but in my head this is probably where we are at at the moment.

Yeah, it's not straightforward, but things never are. There are loads of things to consider, it's impossible to have a succession plan for him as you can't rotate him, not even when he's fasting, isn't the African Cup next season as well? His age and the need for a new cycle of the team.

I think we'll go for a total rebuild this summer, we'll have a decent pre-season i.e. there is no major tournament, so this is the time. If Edwards had stayed the whole time, we'd have sold him sooner I think.

Will be one hell of a summer, very exciting albeit a bit sad, this is the end of the Klopp era now.

[fabinho]

Oh come on. We've been both brilliant and scintillating throughout the season. Almost untouchable.

I'm not disagreeing with that, as we have. At times. However, every season there's often one side that sets the pace over the first few months, a surprise package, and this season it was us. These sides normally start to drop off after a few months, only for normal practice to resume and City take off toward another title.

Nobody really expected us to be here with Slot in his first season. Since the new year our form hasn't been particularly good throughout (we were poor against Utd, Everton, Villa, Wolves, yes we won, Newcastle we were fortunate, had they had Isak they would've at least got a draw imo, gone behind to Southampton and needed penalties to secure 3 points) these are the times when you'd normally see the usual suspects find form and start putting the big winning runs together and that hasn't happened. Not because we've been unstoppable and City, Arsenal, Chelsea couldn't cope, but because they're simply poor versions of themselves this season. Its an anomaly season. Arsenal are the closet but even they've been terribly inconsistent.

If we've been scintillating and brilliant all season, then surely there's no need to change anything? We all know that isn't true as we're looking a shadow of the side we've seen at times, particularly in the first half of the season.The weaknesses in the squad are there for us all to see, and the same problem we've had under FSG from the beginning, a lack of investment for a team expected to fight on all fronts. We lack depth, we always have.

Its been a fantastic season for us all the same, and we can hopefully celebrate it soon as we deserve to, but there's a lot of work to do in the summer.

[labourRed]

I think there may have been a smattering of sarcasm in Bob's post.

[fabinho]

I think there may have been a smattering of sarcasm in Bob's post.

I'm not so sure, I think if I posted that my favourite colour was black, he'd probably reply and say I was wrong...

[BigChief]

My thoughts: I was ready to give up on the PL once Klopp announced his leaving. That along with knowing City will get minimal damage punishment (even if it's numerous points) so they survive and then are allowed to self fund openly from them on. Plus not forgetting that winning another PL title was going to be years if not decades away. But one number 20 later and here we are. I don't care if we don't even challenge next year, I don't care if TAA, VvD and Salah all leave. While we have Michael Edwards (and Slot now obviously) there is a new hope... and with an unexpected PL we are already years ahead.

[Big Dave]

I'm not disagreeing with that, as we have. At times. However, every season there's often one side that sets the pace over the first few months, a surprise package, and this season it was us. These sides normally start to drop off after a few months, only for normal practice to resume and City take off toward another title.

Nobody really expected us to be here with Slot in his first season. Since the new year our form hasn't been particularly good throughout (we were poor against Utd, Everton, Villa, Wolves, yes we won, Newcastle we were fortunate, had they had Isak they would've at least got a draw imo, gone behind to Southampton and needed penalties to secure 3 points) these are the times when you'd normally see the usual suspects find form and start putting the big winning runs together and that hasn't happened. Not because we've been unstoppable and City, Arsenal, Chelsea couldn't cope, but because they're simply poor versions of themselves this season. Its an anomaly season. Arsenal are the closet but even they've been terribly inconsistent.

If we've been scintillating and brilliant all season, then surely there's no need to change anything? We all know that isn't true as we're looking a shadow of the side we've seen at times, particularly in the first half of the season.The weaknesses in the squad are there for us all to see, and the same problem we've had under FSG from the beginning, a lack of investment for a team expected to fight on all fronts. We lack depth, we always have.

Its been a fantastic season for us all the same, and we can hopefully celebrate it soon as we deserve to, but there's a lot of work to do in the summer.

I was going to disagree with your original post, but I've come around from this. Well reasoned and explained above. I still think that we're possibly deserved winners because we could very well still get close to 90 points, and even with another challenger that would hopefully be enough to see us champions.

Although the "big guns" haven't been as good this year, we've definitely seen an improvement in the likes of Bournemouth and Nottingham Forest which makes everything more competitive and I for one hope that continues in the future which will mean champions scoring up to mid 80s for season point totals

[Cerbie]

I think there may have been a smattering of sarcasm in Bob's post.

or he's been hacked!

[rudedog]

I'm not so sure, I think if I posted that my favourite colour was black, he'd probably reply and say I was wrong...

Technically he’d be right as black isn’t an actual colour, it’s a shade

https://www.adobe.com/uk/creativeclo...ey're%20shades.