So I make it we only named a 23 man squad (plus youngsters). To me that's not enough, and the squad probably won't cope sufficiently to win us a trophy, let alone finish top 4, which I'm not so bothered about, as it tends to be a mirage that lures us away from actually winning something. We have to compete in the Prem of course, and (realistically) make roundabouts 6th again, but to do that and win a trophy, that's tough/unlikely with the squad we have.
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25 player premier league squad
- Thread starter Modric THFC
- Start date
Considering some of those youngsters are ahead of some of our senior players in the pecking order I don't see the issue. Chelsea have been picking up trophies for years with smaller squads.
Eh? The quantity of our squad is plenty big enough. The quality is what will probably stop us from winning much, but we live in hope. U21s in bold
----------------------------------Lloris/Vorm/Friedel
Walker/Naughton---Kaboul/Dier/--Vertonghen/Fazio/Chiriches---Rose/Davies
-------------------------Capoue/Stambouli----Dembele/Bentaleb/Ryan Mason
--Lamela/Townsend------------------Eriksen/Paulinho---------------Chadli/Lennon/Ceballos
-----------------------------------------Adebayor/Kane/Soldado
27 players. many of whom are versatile and can play in multiple positions. We've got the numbers, it's just a question of how good they actually are.
Under-21 players (Contract and scholars)
Akindayini, Daniel Oluwaseun
Amos, Luke Ayodele
Archer, Jordan Gideon
Ball, Dominic
Bentaleb, Nabil
Carter-Vickers, Cameron
Coulibaly, Souleymane
Coulthirst, Shaquile Tyshan
Daly, Armani
Davies, Benjamin Thomas
Dier, Eric Jeremy Edgar
Georgiou, Anthony Michael
Glover, Thomas William
Goddard, Cy
Gomelt, Tomislav
Harrison, Shayon
Hayford, Charlie Garath
Kane, Harry
Lameiras, Ruben
Lesniak, Filip
Loft, Ryan
Maghoma, Christian
Mcdermott, Thomas William
McEneff, Aaron
McEvoy, Kenneth
McGee, Luke Paul
McQueen, Alexander Luke
Miller, William
Muscatt, Joseph Luis
Oduwa, Nathan
Ogilvie, Connor Stuart
Onomah, Joshua
Owens, Charlie
Paul, Christopher David
Pritchard, Alex David
Pritchard, Joe Cameron
Ross, Lloyd
Sonupe, Emmanuel Olukolade
Stylianides, Zenon
Veljkovic, Milos
Voss, Harry William
Walker-Peters, Kyle
Walkes, Anton
Ward, Grant Antony
Winks, Harry
Akindayini, Daniel Oluwaseun
Amos, Luke Ayodele
Archer, Jordan Gideon
Ball, Dominic
Bentaleb, Nabil
Carter-Vickers, Cameron
Coulibaly, Souleymane
Coulthirst, Shaquile Tyshan
Daly, Armani
Davies, Benjamin Thomas
Dier, Eric Jeremy Edgar
Georgiou, Anthony Michael
Glover, Thomas William
Goddard, Cy
Gomelt, Tomislav
Harrison, Shayon
Hayford, Charlie Garath
Kane, Harry
Lameiras, Ruben
Lesniak, Filip
Loft, Ryan
Maghoma, Christian
Mcdermott, Thomas William
McEneff, Aaron
McEvoy, Kenneth
McGee, Luke Paul
McQueen, Alexander Luke
Miller, William
Muscatt, Joseph Luis
Oduwa, Nathan
Ogilvie, Connor Stuart
Onomah, Joshua
Owens, Charlie
Paul, Christopher David
Pritchard, Alex David
Pritchard, Joe Cameron
Ross, Lloyd
Sonupe, Emmanuel Olukolade
Stylianides, Zenon
Veljkovic, Milos
Voss, Harry William
Walker-Peters, Kyle
Walkes, Anton
Ward, Grant Antony
Winks, Harry
Gutter Boy
Tim Sherwood
It's really a 28 man squad.
Davies, Dier, Veljkovic, Bentaleb and Kane are U21, but very much part of the first team squad. 4 of them have already featured in league matches this season.
Modric THFC
Jimmy McCormick
Just had check on that UEFA A list and there's only 16 non club trained or association players.
I suspect the confusion is over Davies but he's definitely association trained:
"An “association-trained player” is a player who, between the age of 15 (or the
start of the season during which the player turns 15) and 21 (or the end of the
season during which the player turns 21), and irrespective of his nationality
and age, has been registered with a club or with other clubs affiliated to the
same association as that of his current club for a period, continuous or not, of
three entire seasons or of 36 months. "
He was as Swansea 11/12, 12/13 and 13/14.
So there's room for Friedel in there.
Fair enough. We've already seen Kaboul playing Thursday and Sunday, which is certainly one game too many. Let's see how how the squad copes over the season, my opinion is that it won't cope as well as Chelsea's trophy winning squad(s).
I disagree, I do think we've got sufficient numbers, precisely because the quality isn't there, so we needed to bring in extra quality, to take us up to the 25 limit. Already Walker is a long term casualty, so that means an over reliance on Naughton. I could go on, but we'll see how the squad copes, I say it's not big enough, which includes sufficient quality.
I assume they have better quality in their squads, or maybe better youngsters, I don't know. Let's see how the respective squads cope. My prediction is our squad won't cope as well as Pool's or Chelsea's, and that top 4 isn't on after all. More importantly to me, I don't think a trophy will happen either, which is what I really want from this season.
Gutter Boy
Tim Sherwood
Walker's injury is probably the reason we kept hold of both Kaboul and Chiriches. It's unusual to have 5 senior CBs, so I presume we did this knowing that Dier would play a lot there in these early weeks.
Naughton is an underrated player too.
It's not rocket science that our squad isn't as good as Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, Emirates Marketing Project and probably even Man Utd (apart from defence and defensive midfield - their options there are terrible). It's obvious as our budget is a fraction the size of all these clubs. It will take a frankly ridiculous managerial effort by Pochettino to get us top 4, or even to keep us in the mix of top 4 by season's end.
Unfortunately, we are in the process of trying to develop a new generation of Bale/Modric/King/VDV type squad.
Our strategy is to buy younger players and develop them and supplement them with undervalued players available at moderate fees.
We were lucky that Bale and Modric developed to the level they did at the same time.
Out of our relatively newly rebuilt squad there are a number of young players with the potential IMO to reach that kind of level, but it's not guaranteed, or guaranteed that more than one will reach that level.
The strategy is always one of development and sale and reinvest. It's the Dortmund/Porto model and with our budget the way it is, it's all we've got. We are developing Lamela just now, he's showing promise. If he has a season or two of scoring goals like he did last night in high-profile matches, we'll probably be able to sell him on for £50-60m and reinvest the funds in a promising player like he is.
If Eriksen, or say Kane or Bentaleb develop at the same level and we get lucky, then we might have another couple of shots at the Champions League.
The squad is pretty much almost as good as it could be for our club, numbers and quality wise. I think it needs tweaking to better fit Pochettino's stategy, but other than that, we're not gonna buy a Falcao, or Balotelli, or Sanchez.
Sandman
Dean Austin
Falcao no, Sanchez unlikely but I think we could have had Balotelli if we wanted him before Liverpool did.
clownfoot
Goran Bunjevcevic
I doubt Poch would have wanted him. Osvaldo was his big signing last year at Southampton, he caused trouble and he had no problem getting rid of him. Probably didn't want to have a repeat on his hands
Finney Is Back
Luka Modric
So looking at the squad we had space for two further 'homegrown' players....
I can't help think that this makes it even more frustrating that we missed out on Welbeck. He could've come into the squad without a player having to leave and provided us a better option than Chadli as LWF as well as cover/eventual replacement for Adebayor both for the period of the ANC and future seasons. It also would've allowed us more freedom to get rid of Soldado if we're lucky enough to receive a reasonable offer for him.
IMO us going for Welbeck should've been something we did earlier in the window as part of our strategic planning instead of trying for a last minute deadline day deal.
Having only 17 spaces for overseas players over 21 years of age creates a transfer premium for decent English/Welsh players, it is worth signing the best of these players whenever they come up for a reasonable fee.
The recent squad rules around overseas players also shows how important it is to bring in any overseas youngsters before their 18th Birthday. Luckily the likes of Bentaleb and Velkovic will be classed as homegrown by the time they are overage players. IMO we really do need to be taking advantage of getting in as many talented youngsters as possible from overseas. Obviously this is difficult in terms of work permits etc for any non EU players, but I wonder whether our involvement in the Technical College is partly with the aim of being able to bring players over on student visas and hope that by the end of a 3/4 year degree course the player would qualify for a work-permit having broken through to their full national team?
On another note looking at our squad it seems to me that we should be able to add two overage, overseas players in January if we wish by selling/loaning/releasing Kaboul and Ceballos. After that we would have to be a bit more clever, I guess by January we should have a better idea on whether Chiriches is or isn't cut out for PL football and I still think there is an option of removing Friedel from the squad and replacing him with a homegrown player (either our best young keeper or an experienced, English, journeyman type player who'd be happy to come in and earn a decent wage for keeping himself self fit and probably not having to play).
Would Yedlin count as one of our overage players in January or is he still under 21?
I can't help think that this makes it even more frustrating that we missed out on Welbeck. He could've come into the squad without a player having to leave and provided us a better option than Chadli as LWF as well as cover/eventual replacement for Adebayor both for the period of the ANC and future seasons. It also would've allowed us more freedom to get rid of Soldado if we're lucky enough to receive a reasonable offer for him.
IMO us going for Welbeck should've been something we did earlier in the window as part of our strategic planning instead of trying for a last minute deadline day deal.
Having only 17 spaces for overseas players over 21 years of age creates a transfer premium for decent English/Welsh players, it is worth signing the best of these players whenever they come up for a reasonable fee.
The recent squad rules around overseas players also shows how important it is to bring in any overseas youngsters before their 18th Birthday. Luckily the likes of Bentaleb and Velkovic will be classed as homegrown by the time they are overage players. IMO we really do need to be taking advantage of getting in as many talented youngsters as possible from overseas. Obviously this is difficult in terms of work permits etc for any non EU players, but I wonder whether our involvement in the Technical College is partly with the aim of being able to bring players over on student visas and hope that by the end of a 3/4 year degree course the player would qualify for a work-permit having broken through to their full national team?
On another note looking at our squad it seems to me that we should be able to add two overage, overseas players in January if we wish by selling/loaning/releasing Kaboul and Ceballos. After that we would have to be a bit more clever, I guess by January we should have a better idea on whether Chiriches is or isn't cut out for PL football and I still think there is an option of removing Friedel from the squad and replacing him with a homegrown player (either our best young keeper or an experienced, English, journeyman type player who'd be happy to come in and earn a decent wage for keeping himself self fit and probably not having to play).
Would Yedlin count as one of our overage players in January or is he still under 21?
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Fair comments. We'll see how we progress, or not, at RB this season. Just as Liverpool was a big test that we failed, Sunderland away straight after an international break is another big test, let's see how we do there.
Good points, and exactly what I'm saying with regard to the lack of HG players. To me we didn't hit hit our target, we missed it by two. A Welbeck/Long type player in attack, and a Shawcross type player in defence. We shouldn't have needed to play Kaboul Thursday and Sunday, for example, and I think our lack of a full squad will impact us adversely over the season.
Finney Is Back
Luka Modric
The homegrown rule is precisely why I think we should've retained Dawson and lost Kaboul (even if it meant releasing him on a free). While Dawson's game has regressed over the past few seasons at least it seems that he is still able to compete physically.
Depeding on what happens at Man Utd in the next few months I would be quite happy with us going in for Phil Jones in January in the fact that he is homegrown, has played at PL and CL level and is adaptable, I think these sorts of players will become increasingly valuable to clubs (hence the Welbeck disappointment).
Gutter Boy
Tim Sherwood
I think Rodriguez and Schneiderlin were intended/are expected to fill those last two homegrown spots.
I think it would have been a mistake to pay £16m for Welbeck when Rodriguez is the player Poch wants. He's also considerably better than Welbeck and will be cheaper. Welbeck would have been another Dempsey/Pienaar 12-month stop-gap, rather than a proper solution.
As you say, Kaboul and/or Chiriches can definitely make way to allow us to bring in 1 or 2 further O/S players (e.g. if we go back for Mascherano or Moreno), and Ceballos can be loaned.
Yedlin isn't coming till next summer. I imagine what will happen is Yedlin and Archer will come into the squad at the expense of Naughton (sold) and Friedel (retired). That's a straightforward rebalance.