The summer transfer window 2019 thread

[Crouchend_Hammer]

I think it's fair to look at our injury record when assessing the playing squad.

A majority Forum (not me) seem to have written Sanchez off, so if Declan Rice get's injured, who will be happy to see him in the starting line up.

Add injuries to Haller and Hernandez and Yarmalenko, who are we going to be fielding as our first 11 and subsequently who will be on the subs bench.

As it stands, in my opinion, the squad is thin.

Croydon i agree the squad is thin in parts, but the injury situation applies to nearly every club in world football. It is very hard to legislate for injuries and have real quality in every position sitting on the bench or in the stands every week.
We definitely need a real top drawer central midfielder IMHO, but, what from i can gather the manager does not seem to want the type of player i think we need [as we are never linked with that type of player]

If injuries happen, then that is when your manager needs to step up and earn his considerable corn. SPurs have no like for like replacement for Kane, but when he first got injured Pochettino was able to re-jig things to keep them ticking them over. That is what separates the good managers from those who are only adept at spending money

[Sloop John B]

As it stands, in my opinion, the squad is thin.

I understand where you are coming from... But we can't be expected to sign quality players on the chance that we'll pick up long term injuries.

The players who we've lost we're largely marginal at best...The biggest miss is Arnautovic who missed a chunk of the season himself!

Any club outside the top 6 will struggle with long term injuries to first team players...

[Hugh Jargon]

Ref the CF issue. We could always shive a centre back up there! What could possibly go wrong?
Pardon?

[The Green Man]

Yarma has only played a few times in his career as an SS or a CF. I'm sure he could fill in, in the same way Antonio does..

[Croydon]

———————Fabianski

Fredericks—-Diop—-Balbuena——Masuaku

—————Wilshere—-Noble——————

Fornals————Lanzini———Anderson——

———————Antonio

Subs: Roberto, Cresswell, Reid, Johnson, Snodgrass, Diangana, Silva

So when Antonio tires during the game and we need a goal we're going to bring on Silva who hasn't had a preseason, hasn't scored a senior goal and has just had major surgery?

Your midfield doesn't inspire much defensive confidence either.

Whoscored.com doesn't show Fornals as being able to play on the right wing (is that accurate?).

In my opinion and again, judging by our injury history, it's not a hard stretch to imagine we could be left with the team you've outlined, which again in my opinion, would get thumped by most in the league.

[Patito]

I think we'll sign a young-ish back-up striker before the window shuts.

[umweb]

We wont be buying a centre back. We have 4, 5 if you include Rice as an emergency centre back.

good. it takes time to properly integrate a new CB. ogbonna already has a year head start over any new CB and the 3 seemed to have a real understanding toward the end of the season.

[Patito]

Whoscored.com doesn't show Fornals as being able to play on the right wing (is that accurate?).

Whilst I think Fornals will primarily play centrally for us, he played wide in Spain's U21 team with whom he won the Euros this Summer.

He has played out wide on occasion for Villarreal too.

He seemed to drift both wide and centrally for us against Fulham as well.

Whoscored isn't the best source of info when it comes to positions etc. ***

***Edit - it has his positions listed as:
Positions: Midfielder (Centre, Left, Right)

[YorksHammer]

You say the squad is smaller, but we quite literally don't have room in the squad to sign those 3 players.

So who are you leaving out?

Yeah, this is a really good point and what I think some people aren't getting - we were lucky last season, in a way, that Diop was still underage but a guaranteed starter.

Now that he's an overage player, we automatically added someone to the squad numbers without even making a signing. Silva is the same. When you combine that with the likes of Cullen coming back and adding to the homegrown players, again without a signing, our squad has started to fill up without us actually spending cash out. All these players take up space.

We'll have the same thing next summer - Diangana will be overage as he was born before 1st Jan 1999, for example. Think another notable name is Holland going overage, Joe Powell as well.

Catch 22 - we want our youth players to break through, but if they're not good enough when they cross the limit we either have to loan them or sell them. I imagine a big part of why Browne was sold is he would have been an overage player this season and we don't have a squad space for him.

By my count we've got our maximum 17 non-homegrown overage players (when including Silva), but I think only 7 overage homegrown players.

So we can add an overage homegrown player without any issue. Adding a non-homegrown player either means leaving Silva out of the squad - which, given his injuries, might not be an issue initially but also means we will lose one of the other forward players available to us for at least 6 months - or someone else out, or we have to sell someone.

That makes a player like Malen (linked from PSV, I believe) attractive because they're still underage but have some experience with a different first team. Obviously the question then becomes whether we can sign him, whether the cost is reasonable, and whether the player wants to move (I didn't realise Malen is ex-Arsenal youth - not long enough to count as homegrown, sadly - so London is not completely alien to him).

A young non-homegrown striker like Malen and then a homegrown midfielder like Hayden (hm11 favourite) would be what we could bring in still without outward movement or cutting someone from the squad.

Were we linked with Kamara from Marseille earlier in the window? CB normally but has played DM. You could flip the above two if we signed him, although I imagine there's a bigger cost involved.

[Croydon]

Whilst I think Fornals will primarily play centrally for us, he played wide in Spain's U21 team with whom he won the Euros this Summer.

He has played out wide on occasion for Villarreal too.

He seemed to drift both wide and centrally for us against Fulham as well.

Whoscored isn't the best source of info when it comes to positions etc. ***

Thanks, I don't really know anything about him at all. I seem to remember him playing on the left for Spain, but that was more than a few beers ago.

Regardless, the sentiment remains the same - we're a small amount of injuries away from fielding a team with a very soft underbelly - I'm not naive enough to think we will be spending a large amount on anyone else this window, but we desperately need a CF and CM.

[LeonRivers]

I don’t think leaving Silva out of the squad would be an issue. His wages won’t be big enough for it to really bother, it gives him time to recover, we can include him in the league cup squad if needed and look to get him a loan when ready.

[Portland Hammer]

———————Fabianski

Fredericks—-Diop—-Balbuena——Masuaku

—————Rice—-Noble——————

Anderson——Wilshere———Fornals

———————Haller


2nd 11:
———————Roberto

Zabaleta—-Reid—-Ogbonna——Creswell

—————Sanchez—-Snodgrass——————

Antonio————Lanzini———Yarmalenko——

———————Hernandez

+ Martin, Johnson, Oxford, Cullen, Mesaque, Silva

If I had one shot left I would use it to upgrade on Sanchez. Happy enough with the rest of the squad. Pity that West Brom just bought the Brentford midfielder for 3m - he would have been excellent as a depth player. If only we could ship Sanchez out on loan (maybe back to South America) or ideally sell (China, UAE), I think it would have been a very strong window. Bertolacci is available for free, as is Radoja. Either one is better than Sanchez. The Maripan for Ogbonna swap would be a bonus but not essential for me.

[Julien Snow Bear]

I thought I'd look into it and try and work out exactly what's going on with our squad size. This could be wrong, but going from the PL website, last season we submitted a 23 man squad, with 7 homegrown and 16 non-HG.

1 Antonio, Michail Gregory*
2 Arnautovic, Marko
3 Balbuena Gonzalez, Fabian Cornelio
4 Carroll, Andrew Thomas*
5 Cresswell, Aaron*
6 Fabianski, Lukasz
7 Fredericks, Ryan* 
8 Hernandez Balcazar, Javier 
9 Lanzini, Manuel
10 Makasi, Kusu Moses* 
11 Masuaku Kawela, Fuka-Arthur
12 Noble, Mark James* 
13 Obiang Avomo, Pedro Mba
14 Ogbonna, Obinze Angelo
15 Pereira Gomes, Felipe Anderson
16 Perez, Lucas 
17 Reid, Winston Wiremu
18 San Miguel Del Castillo, Adrian
19 Sanchez Moreno, Carlos Alberto
20 Snodgrass, Robert
21 Wilshere, Jack Andrew*
22 Yarmolenko, Andrii
23 Zabaleta Girod, Pablo Javier

We then had Coventry, Diangana, Diop, Holland, Johnson, Oxford, Powell, Rice, Trott kicking around as players we didn't need to register.

This year we will have:

1 Antonio, Michail Gregory*
2 Arnautovic, Marko Haller, Sebastien
3 Balbuena Gonzalez, Fabian Cornelio
4 Carroll, Andrew Thomas* Silva, Xande
5 Cresswell, Aaron*
6 Fabianski, Lukasz
7 Fredericks, Ryan* 
8 Hernandez Balcazar, Javier 
9 Lanzini, Manuel
10 Makasi, Kusu Moses* Cullen, Josh*
11 Masuaku Kawela, Fuka-Arthur
12 Noble, Mark James* 
13 Obiang Avomo, Pedro Mba Fornals, Pablo
14 Ogbonna, Obinze Angelo
15 Pereira Gomes, Felipe Anderson
16 Reid, Winston Wiremu
17 San Miguel Del Castillo, Adrian Roberto
18 Sanchez Moreno, Carlos Alberto
19 Snodgrass, Robert
20 Wilshere, Jack Andrew*
21 Yarmolenko, Andrii
22 Zabaleta Girod, Pablo Javier
23 Diop, Issa Laye Lucas Jean
24 Martin, David*

Plus Coventry, Diangana, Holland, Johnson, Oxford, Powell, Rice.

That means we have a 24 man squad with space for another non-HG player if we want. Or two if we decide to leave out Silva.

It also depends if we decide to include Cullen in the squad or not. But we couldn't leave him out to fit in another non-HG player.

Did I forget anyone?

[YorksHammer]

I would also say the squad's only thin if you don't personally rate the back ups - but then it's no good looking at them and suggesting we sign players who would want to start.

We're not in the same position as Man City, where you can basically interchange players when injured/jaded and keep the 'reserves' happy with a little bit of football and earning a big wedge.

I wouldn't be surprised if, for example, we're hearing little rumours of Ogbonna moving back to Italy because he knows he's a back up and wants to break back into the Italy set up if he can ahead of the Euros next summer. I'm sure his agent is playing a part in all of that, trying to drum up interest, and it's also clear that we wouldn't stand in his way of a move given he's not a key player for our starting eleven.

Personally I think the back ups we have throughout the squad are, largely, good enough for a midtable Premier League team, which is what we are right now. The only question mark for me is over Sanchez, who hasn't played enough in our shirt to really make a solid impression of his qualities, but struggled at Villa under mitigating circumstances (i.e. they were all ****). Even then, I wouldn't say he was noticeably bad against the rest of the team - in fact, from memory, he got stuck in pretty well in the middle of the park for them. It's not like he's Alfie Mawson, where he was noticeable crap in a crap team (and yet people still wanted to spend £20m on him the other summer - where is he now?)

[Sloop John B]

Someone posted the other day that we have the most imbalanced squad ever... Looking at that 2nd XI I'm just not seeing it. That's got to be the strongest 2nd XI we've ever had... Yes there can still be improvements and yes given a bunch of long term injuries we're in trouble but still....

[Crouchend_Hammer]

Son, and Moura, had had very limited time playing up front in their careers before Kane got injured. However, they were able to adapt to the roles as required

Again, that is where your manager earns his money. Identifying which players in the squad have the ability to play specific roles that are required when injuries/ suspensions/ poor form dictates. Rice got his chance in centre midfield because of a similar situation and look where he is now

If all your strikers get injured then you adapt your system and make best use of the players you do have available

It was what managers/coaches had to do in the old days before squads became so bloated

[Colours never run]

good. it takes time to properly integrate a new CB. ogbonna already has a year head start over any new CB and the 3 seemed to have a real understanding toward the end of the season.

It didn't for Balbuena or Diop and both overtook Ogbonna in quick succession. Only injury interrupted that, so it can be achieved.

[ageing hammer]

You say the squad is smaller, but we quite literally don't have room in the squad to sign those 3 players.

So who are you leaving out?

But we shifted all these below so how is there no more room?


perez,fernandes obiang byram browne arnautovic
carroll Adrian nasri

[Patito]

Son, and Moura, had had very limited time playing up front in their careers before Kane got injured. However, they were able to adapt to the roles as required

Again, that is where your manager earns his money. Identifying which players in the squad have the ability to play specific roles that are required when injuries/ suspensions/ poor form dictates. Rice got his chance in centre midfield because of a similar situation and look where he is now

If all your strikers get injured then you adapt your system and make best use of the players you do have available

It was what managers/coaches had to do in the old days before squads became so bloated

Very well put.

[Croydon]

Someone posted the other day that we have the most imbalanced squad ever... Looking at that 2nd XI I'm just not seeing it. That's got to be the strongest 2nd XI we've ever had... Yes there can still be improvements and yes given a bunch of long term injuries we're in trouble but still....

I'm just not sharing your optimism unfortunately. We're pedestrian all over the park except a few positions. We CANNOT play with Hernandez upfront; he cannot hold it up and the ball inevitably comes back at us, bypassing a slow midfield.

The CF position will really hinder us.