Fair enough, I’m fairly fickle. Lots of extremely early dives since then.
It obviously won’t happen but it’s a damn shame the likes of Saliba, Rice, Odegaard and Saka won’t be sent off to start an extended break now.
In the case of Rice and Saka, these two have been playing continuously for around 4 years now with long seasons followed by international tournaments.
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We still haven’t secured CL football next season mate. Let’s do that first and then worry about resting.
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and then when they’re inevitably injured for long periods of time…everyone has a shocked Pikachu face.
The club needs to act and get reliable cover this summer.
We will not have the budget to get cover for players like Rice and Saka AND then fill the obvious gaps. We will need an element of luck with injuries
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Hopefully we can start with filling the key gaps first in that case.
No more experimental, weird signings or strange dreams Arteta please.
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That article is insane. Sell Kiwior and Trossard. Release BOTH Partey and Jorginho.
How much work would we have to do in the transfer window? One of the biggest problems was our laughable bench we had the pain of seeing in approximately 70% of our games.
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I agree with you that we are going to need to be careful about outgoings. The squad is very thin atm and we need to address our attack. If we are not careful we will end up spending significant sums of our transfer budget on replacements for players we could retain for another season - Kiwior being an obvious candidate given his recent performances. Providing there is no legal obstacle, offering Partey another short term deal also makes sense, notwithstanding Zubimendi’s expected arrival!
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I don’t think the size of the squad will change next season.
You’re still looking at about 25 players.
The overall quality of that 25 might change.
Well yeah, that’s the goal.
Get a decent keeper to compete with Raya.
Replace Kiwior who’ll probably look for more game time next season.
Find a successor to Partey.
Upgrade on Trossard.
Upgrade on Jesus.
what happens to Martinelli? Think he should be relegated to the sub or sell too?
Unless we get some ridiculous fee from the Saudis I’d say keep.
Let him compete with whoever we bring. Not a bad player to have around either way. Can see him do pretty well off the bench.
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If the club has got any sense they’ll be sending Saliba, Skelly (moreso thinking long term here before overload becomes a problem), Rice, Odegaard and Saka off to start their holidays tomorrow.
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https://x.com/BBCSport/status/1925103886311821410
Saw this the other day and it made me look at the PL squads.
I thought City must’ve expanded their squad greatly after that January window but they’ve only got 28 players, and that’s including their youngsters in Echeverri, McAtee and O’Reilly.
Even so, that’s too big for him.
I totally get where he’s coming from to be honest. City have been one of the teams that have been operating with one of the smallest squads in recent years but what they did was put an emphasis on the quality in the squad. Sure, they had 22-24 players pretty much all of those players had the capacity to start for City.
I do wonder what approach we’ll take this summer. We’ve also been one of the teams that’s operated with a small squad for years now. I think our issue though is that didn’t come with the emphasis on quality.
I’d say the ideal squad size for a top team is between 23 and 25.
And in that ideal scenario you need two players in each position who can start for your team, so that’s 22.
From there you add a third choice keeper to make it 23 then you may add one or two youngsters who you integrate into the first team.
It’s a weird way for pep to say he wants Grealish out tbh
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Glad Arteta was asked about this in the press conference. He said he didn’t feel the same as Pep as he never had to leave multiple senior players out of the team and highlighted how he had kids on the bench with no experience.
Some talk about optimal size(22 was mentioned), and how size is one thing but you have to have the right profiles.
Our style of play and group of players has barely changed across the last couple years, we have been studied and blueprints are there for every team now. The squad dosnt need minor tweaks we need a refresh to go up a level again imo.
For me I’d be looking to change these starting positions.
Martinelli, Havertz, Partey, Odegaard
Wirtz would be a complete level raiser, but a lack of ruthlessness means I think Odegaard stays in the 11 and could end up being artetas downfall next season.
We played our strongest midfield three for most of the season and we went backwards in control, chance creation, field tilt, giving up chances straight through the heart of midfield consistently. Playing Rice Partey Odegaard I just think we’re gonna have more of the same.
Imagine Zubimendi Rice Wirtz not only is it completely elite but every team will have to figure out how to nullify it. Starting the season again with Rice, Partey Odeaard (or even Zubi) I think it just gonna be more of the same shit.
I dont think adding one relatively mediocre CF (gyokeres/Sesko) or a backup LW (semenyo/Williams) is gonna do anything at all in raising our celing (which is as much our issue as our depth imo).
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I’m concerned about Ødegaard’s season but you can’t write off years of clear play making ability and resign him to the has-been dump.
Having a player like Zubimendi as the lynchpin, we should be able to push Øde higher up the pitch and let him focus on wreaking havoc on the opponents back line, rather than having a 50/50 mindset of his defensive duties. It doesn’t totally absolve him from the latter but it potentially offers him more of this freedom.