It's a miracle we need not time to compete in the Premier league
We have earned promotion built on a fantastically well-disciplined defensive regime that has earned us the privilege of having a full three months to prepare a squad for our new Premier League adventure.
Alan Pace and Scott Parker know better than most about the difficulties a newly promoted team from the Championship is presented with in the English Premier League.
Pace and Parker have both experienced the horror of being relegated twice from the EPL, but both will no doubt be older and wiser and with promotion being earned before April is out the Clarets have earned the right to be able to put together a 25-man squad capable of not repeating the fate of last years? three promoted teams.
If the Clarets are not to suffer the same fate as Southampton, Leicester City and Ipswich Town and be relegated in their first season back, the time is now to secure a squad good enough to stay up.
New or extended contracts need to be completed for James Trafford, Bashir Humphreys, Jordan Beyer, Maxime Esteve, CJ Egan Riley, Connor Roberts, Lucas Pires, Oliver Sonne, Josh Brownhill, Josh Cullen, Hannibal Mejbri, Jaidon Anthony, Marcus Edwards, Luca Koleosho, Aaron Ramsey and Zian Flemming. That?s 16 players sorted, just nine more to fill in. Two more goalkeepers make it 18 leaving just 7 names to add to the squad.
My deliberate omissions for a variety of conflicting reasons include Lyle Foster, Mike Tresor, Manuel Benson, Nathan Redmond, Joe Worrall and Ashley Barnes. It?s tough in the EPL and some tough decisions need to be made.
So come on Alan and Scott you have earned the right to hold the luxury of three months to fine tune the squad and congratulations on a fantastic achievement in getting promotion after the shock departure of Vincent Kompany to Munich. Unbelievable#
It's a miracle we need not time to compete in the Premier league
He needs to buy QUALITY AND NOT QUANTITY in the transfer market.
Pires can not defend so at premier league level were asking for trouble
Beyer may never be the same again but we need to extend at least and hope he comes to.
Aaron Ramsey the same as Beyer
Roberts has signed a new deal
Imo Trafford wi go and maybe Brownhill as well although the money will be there for him now so he may stay
Koleosho will want away if think based on you keeping Edwards and Anthony. ( verdicts still out on these two for me as they go missing when we need players to dig in ).
Finding / buying players I think is the easier bit but paying them the wages is the hard bit , posted last week at Watford id get the boy who played midfield ( got sent off 2 nd one ). If we can get him at right money I think hed be shrewd business - looks to me like hes box to box and big strong and difficult to play against and could step up.
A striker to replace foster will be 30/40 million quid who can score goals so its a real gamble for me forward wise
I hope that we can get a few contract situations resolved. That will make the picture clearer.
I also hope that Scott Parker will stick with the players who have won promotion rather than do what Kompany did. Whilst they may not be the most talented group, there is a togetherness which shouldn’t be destroyed.
The other unknown is how ALK will play it - all offers accepted or a “not for sale sign”. I hope the latter and fear the former.
Word is Brownhill has been offered a mammoth contract to stay. I hope he stays with us.
It's pretty uncertain what the current financial situation is but we have the funds arriving for Amdouni and it is pretty certain Obafemi, Delcroix, Ekdal, Massengo, Sambo, Hountondji and Dodgson will be made available for offers. Someone in the bowels of Turf Moor needs to get cracking on to bring in close to 40 million quid and reduce the wage bill.
We have according to reports completed or will shortly complete the permanent signings of Edwards, Humphrey, Anthony and Flemming.
We were obligated Sir Outwood once we achieved promotion, but reliable press sources are claiming we have nailed all four down on four year contracts for a combined total of 36 million quid which seems mightily reasonable to me.
I'd like the Egan Riley and Brownhill situations to be resolved in our favour too#