To be honest.
A very good striker would make a massive difference to us.
And a manager that knows how to use our team.
I might be in the minority here, but I actually think we have a decent squad. Not going to pull any trees up with it obviously, but I reckon we have something to build on without having to replace everybody all at once. Our defence, for instance, is not the worst with a great keeper to guide them.
Instead of having them all replaced and sold and that, imagine what just 3-4 real quality signings + a new talented manager could do to our current team. That would do for me in the first window. It would do wonders.
And yes, we would have to sell some of the deadwood, that's fine.
To be honest.
A very good striker would make a massive difference to us.
And a manager that knows how to use our team.
So you're saying paying Andy Carrol £25,000 basic + bonuses is value for money?
You could employ 25,000 Geordies at £1000 a month (1/4 the price of Carrol) to turn up at every Training session and cheer the players on. Spend the £5000 a month on history lessons and community interaction for the new players and STILL SAVE a bassa fortune.
This is the exact reason why everyone outside the sport bashes football.
How about Bringing Rob Lee, Clarkie, Shearer, Keegan back to the club in a variety of roles and negating the need to keep over paid underachieving players on the books?
Carrol is one of the first I'd show the door. If he wasn't a Geordie NO WAY would he be withing 100miles of the club.
Admittedly ditching 16 players is not gonna happen; Dummy isn't a one of the worst we have. I wouldn't be mad if he was still at the club when the new owners come in and next season actually happens.
However:
Gayle
Muto
Carrol
All stealing a living. bring in 1 or 2 players who can actually score goals.
Kraft - total fraud
Elliot - Chimpo at best
Darlow - Chimpo at best
Lazaro - Not ours, not worth the money, may better options out there - Free transfer for the Thomas Meunier big wages but MASSIVE step up in quality
Bentaleb - Same as Lazaro - better options available at the club and possible Vidal signature is a huge improvement in quality.
Danny Rose - Overweight, lazy and bad attitude; thinks he's too good for us. FLUSH! Not worth the transfer fee; Jetro is the man when he recovers.
Atsu - ? Really? Do I need to? The lad is hit and miss and when he hits it's bang average. Dead weight. Get shot.
Basically I think we need to build on these players
Goal Keepers
- Dubravka and Woodman - Check
Defenders
- Lejeune, Lascelles, Schar, Fernandez, Clarke and Dummy
- Clark and Dummy would be the first to be replaced over the next few windows
Midfield
- Hayden is our most underrated player in my opinion, he reads the game really well and just does his job
- Longstaffs - get 'um signed up
Attack
- ASM
- Miggy
I don't expect this to happen in 1 window, also replacing so many players in one window would be very difficult to get them to click.
Whilst it's idealistic I'm pragmatic in thinking that it will take 3 or 4 windows to get to a place where we have a genuinely dangerous squad.
However 2 bigger points.
First bringing in the right manager.
Second - taking advantage of UEFA relaxing the FFP rules due to Corona. If we can slip through 8 worldies in one window then I say Yalla! Let's get it down before they slam the door closed
Money to burn baby woop woop
Mint post that, like.
I'd keep Manquillo as back up over Yedlin, Yedlin's been god awful for the past 18 months and wants to move. Manquillo although he started off badly, has stepped up and has been one of our better players over the same period. His contracts up like at the end of the season, but a year or 2 extension and then we could sell/release him next summer instead.
I'd keep Joelinton as well, we spent £40M on him, he's still young and he's obviously been played out of position/not suited to our current tactics. He may as well get another shot at this under a better manager, with some better players around him and maybe see what he can do then. Cut our losses if it doesn't work out after another season.
Great post, agree about the manager bit.
I never thought i'd say it but i agree with Mag_Laad about ****quillo.