That’s true but we should take advantage while we’re top of the PL and an attractive team to go to.
Danilo and one of Depay, Torres or Raphinha (loans) in January.
I’d still pay to bring in Tielemans or Zaha early - Palace will ask for silly money though.
Decent back up team.
----------------------------Turner
–Soares-/Tomi–Tomi/Holding–White—Tierney-.
-------------------Danilo----Tielemanns-----------------------
—ESR---------------Vieira-------------------Depay--------------
---------------------------Nketiah-------------------------------------
45m and guaranteed CL football. Send Depay back in June,bring Wilf in and put some faith in Mar9 and Balogun as strikers. Money available for a marquee signing.
Zaha’s a moaner and doesn’t seem to fit with the group we have already. Maddison would be better as he could cover any of Saka, Martinelli, Odegaard and maybe even Xhaka.
Torres, Torres or Mudryk for the wing, any can help us immediately to rotate Gabi/Saka.
CM - think the starting 3 of Xhaka-Partey-Odegaard is working well so don’t need to buy a new starter there in Jan that midfield is capable of winning the league already the way they’re playing.
Take Odegaard out and slot in Vieira or ESR (new signing in Jan), we probably can survive most of the time. Take either of the other two out and I’m worried, we need capable backups not Sambi ‘cba’ Lokonga. Zinky could probably do the Xhaka role so really it’s big TP5 we need to sort out a backup for.
Sounds like a midlevel criminal law firm.
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back in the early and mid 2000s he was
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We already have two guys who can play on the wings but are really attacking midfielders in ESR and Vieira. What we don’t have is a real wide forward who can do a passable impression of Martinelli or Saka - someone who will kill you one on one if you don’t double on the outside, who is a threat to run behind the defense, and who can switch positions with Jesus on occasion to keep the defense on their toes. I don’t know who it is but that’s the player we need IMO - someone who allows us to play the same tactics even if Martinelli or Saka have a knock or need a rest and who can also come on late in games and be a real goal scoring threat.
Raphinha was probably the best profile for this role but I suspect that ship has sailed. I don’t think Zaha has the technical ability and instincts in possession to play our style. Pedro Neto is hurt again and wasn’t good before getting hurt his year. Yeremy Pino isn’t doing much of anything in Spain this year. Mudryk seems way overpriced and maybe more of a counter-attacking player anyway.
I’m very interested to see who Edu/Arteta target and my guess is that its a player under the radar that isn’t being talked about much yet.
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Be interesting to see if our CB gap is addressed in January.
With White making that RB spot his, we’ve become a bit light at CB. It has become a problem with rotation. Can’t rest both Saliba and Gabriel as Holding is the only other CB left.
There were some links around Evan Ndicka recently whose contract expires next summer.
Could be worth spending £5-10m in January and getting him ahead of time.
Ideal shopping list for January should be:
- Winger
- Midfielder
- Centre-back
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Tomiyasu takes RB and White goes central.
I don’t see what center back gap is there.
Center backs don’t usually need a lot of rest or rotation.
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This gap:
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for 4th choice, he is fine.
He knows his role and has accepted it.
You won’t get many who would be willing to take this role.
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Yep. When your best alternative to Saka and Martinelli for either flank is your backup striker, Nketiah, then something’s not quite right.
I assume that’s where the club will put big money on in January.
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I suppose the gap is that Tomiyasu is a bit of a cripple which means we’re often 1 injury away from seeing Holding or Cedric.
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You would have had me agreeing with that until very recently, but since that NLD last season, the guy has been a wreck.
If we’re serious about a title charge, guys like Cedric, Holding and Elneny need to be come emergency backups, not viable options with an injury or two.
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Agree with Elneny being emergency backup
But Holding & Cedric absolutely are emergency backup right now.
It would take injuries to two of our center backs for Holding to play significant minutes, otherwise he is a Europa/Carabao/FA cup player.
It would take injuries to both White & Tomiyasu for Cedric to come in and Cedric has not been that bad in last 2 seasons.
Then honestly we need to replace them, rather than add more players to the squad to account for their possible absences. It would just bloat the wages & make players difficult to move again.
Guess we can do with one more utility player who can play across the backline but if he is not good enough to start as first choice & second choice, how good would he really be?
We have 8 defenders, which seems like a good number of players to me.
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We definitely need a CB in an ideal world. I don’t know how that is even debateable.
If the aim is to have 2 players for each position we currently look like this.
LB Zinchenko/Tierney
LCB Gabriel / ?
RCB Saliba / Holding
RB White / Tomiyasu
Having players who can cover multiple roles only gives the illusion of strong depth, because numbers wise your still short. Especially when Holding is someone you ideally never want playing a run of games in the first team.
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You forgot Cedric.
White playing really well at RB is a bonus for us but he is absolutely a center back first and right back second.
LB Zinchenko/Tierney
LCB Gabriel / White
RCB Saliba / Holding
RB Tomiyasu / Cedric
We do have 2 players for each position.
In an ideal world, we can have 8 Saliba-esque players and that wouldn’t be debatable either
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That’s why Lisandro was considered a unicorn by the club, because he could fill in 2 gaps, CB/LB.
As we also learned, the club was indeed very interested in Bassey who ended up at Ajax who also has similar versatility.
Ndicka is a player who’s similar. He is a LCB in 3atb which often requires him bombarding forward.
Any Ndickations he’d want to join us?
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White LCB ?
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Yes Ndidi
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