We can quite easily raise a bit of cash in the summer.
At GK:
- Lets try and flog Amelia for something.
That leaves us with Courtois & Begovic. Preferably bring in a HG player to cover the 3rd spot, so we have more space for foreign players in the outfield squad.
Defence:
Not a lot to move around here because we lack a couple of players already but if I could I'd sell Ivanovic, recoup some money from Baba by selling him as well. That leaves us with Azpilicueta, Zouma, Cahill, JT (if we resign him), Miazga and really allows us to shuffle the defence properly. I'd be looking to bring in a left back that we'll actually play, and maybe someone like Stones who can play in the middle and also cover the RB spot decently.
Central Midfield:
Interesting reshuffle could happen here, and we've started well by selling Ramires IMO. We should possibly sell on Mikel as well and bring in a few midfielders to compete with the rest. That would leave Fabregas, Matic, RLC. We now have scope to bring one or two in who will compete with those guys, specifically with Matic who I'm having second thoughts about. A very solid DM and maybe a good B2B midfielder would help. Someone like Rubén Neves would be great.
Attacking midfield:
Got a good bunch of players here, some out on loan too. At the moment we've got Hazard, Willian, Pedro, Oscar, Kenedy. We've also got young gems like Musonda and Boga out on loan. Cuadrado too, but hopefully we sell him. I'd be interested in selling Oscar too because I think he'd get in quite a bit of money for us - then we can truly upgrade on him with a proper #10. Someone like Isco would be ideal. Next season we could have something like Hazard, Willian, Pedro, Kenedy, Isco and Musonda/Boga as our options. That would be great.
Forwards:
An interesting conundrum here. We've got Costa, who's easily world class when on form, and then a couple of slightly above average players. Gap between first & second choice is quite big unfortunately. I'd be looking to shift Remy and Falcao, and Pato if his loan doesn't work out. Promote Traore to 3rd choice and get in a good 2nd choice striker - someone with a different skill set that is versatile, that could play with our main striker and compete. Berahino is a pretty interesting option possibly? I don't know.
All in all, my sell list would be:
Amelia
Ivanovic
Baba
Mikel
Oscar
Remy
Falcao
A couple of loanees that I don't think will ever make it here:
Cuadrado
Pasalic
Bamford
Djilobodji
Atsu
Moses
Van Ginkel
Piazon
Omeruo
Hector
Plus some more irrelevant players...
The squad for next season should ideally look something like this:
GK:
Courtois, Begovic, x
DF:
Azpi, Zouma, JT, Miazga, Cahill, x, x
CMF:
Fabregas, Matic, RLC, x, x
AMF:
Hazard, Willian, Pedro, Kenedy, Musonda/Boga, x
FW:
Costa, Traore, x
So, that's a total of 6 players we need to buy - with us letting go of around 17(!) to fund that if possible. Of course this is in an ideal world. We'd have to bring in the right players, and the squad could easily be very competitive again. Very easily.
