Jype

GK: Kepa, Mendy, Bettinelli, Slonina LB: Chilwell, Cucurella, Maatsen RB: James, Gusto, Azpilicueta CB: Silva, Fofana, Badiashile, Colwill, Chalobah, Koulibaly, Sarr, Ampadu DM/CM: Enzo, Kante, Kovacic, RLC, Mount, Zakaria, Gallagher, Chukwuemeka, Hall, Santos LW/RW: Mudryk, Ziyech, Pulisic, Felix, Sterling, Madueke, CHO FW: Havertz, Nkunku, D. Fofana, Aubameyang, Broja, Lukaku ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That makes it 41 players when counting all of our current squad, returning loanees and the arrivals of Nkunku and Gusto in the summer. We'll almost certainly be adding another striker as well as a new DM which would take the list up to a ridiculous 43 players. Now that it's confirmed we won't be having European football for next season I would say the optimal squad size for a season of only EPL + domestic cups is around 23-24 first team players so as things stand there's around 19-20 players too many. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here's my list of players who we should be looking to get rid: Slonina (loan out) Cucurella / Maatsen, keep one sell one Koulibaly / Chalobah, keep one sell one Sarr Ampadu Azpi Kovacic / RLC, keep one sell one Mount / Gallagher, keep one sell one Zakaria (loan expiring) Hall (loan out) Santos (loan out) Chukwuemeka (loan out) Ziyech Pulisic CHO Aubameyang Felix (loan expiring) D. Fofana (loan out) Broja (loan out) Lukaku That's 20 players. Probably won't be successful in offloading everyone from the list but at least 16-17 departures should be a realistic target, considering many on the list are promising youngsters who we'd be loaning out to lesser clubs for their development on the cheap. Of the 'multiple choice' options I'd ideally look to keep Maatsen, Chalobah, Kovacic and Mount but I'll take anything as long as at least one of each category leaves. Lukaku, Aubameyang, Ziyech, Pulisic and sadly Azpilicueta are the ones who absolutely have to go. Going to be a very busy summer at the club office. 😂

I rate Kovacic but wouldn't mind if he left. We need a proper DM/6 to play alongside Enzo and Kovacic is not that. Fact of the matter is some of our current midfielders have to leave to get to an optimal squad size and Enzo is the only one who's future at the club is 100% certain. Out of Kante, Kovacic, Mount, RLC, Gallagher, Zakaria it would be preferable to keep just two or at the very most three players and the rest should be gone. Chukwuemeka would probably benefit from a loan spell.

Personally I couldn't give less fucks about Pochettino's history with Spurs but I just don't rate him as a top manager, though at this point he's probably the best we could realistically get so let's see how it goes. Working to improve some of our younger players over the next couple of years and stabilizing the team as a top4 side would be my expectation for Poch. Once he's reached his ceiling (like he did with Spurs) it's probably the right time to bin him and get a proper top manager to win us some trophies once the team and the whole club is in a better state than it currently is. For a youth project like this he could even be a good pick but I have very little hope he'll actually come good on the trophy front.

Pochettino's been out of a job since the end of 2021/22 season so yeah he would have been available in September 2022. From what I remember I'm pretty sure he was even interviewed for the job after Tuchel got sacked but the club hired Potter instead.

Mudryk was also one of the only players from our side to have a decent performance against Brighton so it would be weird to single him out for criticism. Of the underperforming lot Cucurella and Koulibaly weren't even playing in the last game so Sterling's the only one who makes any sense, assuming the story is even half true to begin with.

I don't see how Nagelsmann's age should be a problem, he's a very experienced manager for his age. He already has seven years as a manager in a top league and his teams have also been involved in the UCL for the last five seasons. To put it into context, Nagelsmann at 35 has managed more games in the UCL than Tuchel had when he first became Chelsea manager. There's a huge difference between Nagelsmann's top level experience to Potter's pre-Chelsea record which was only three years at Brighton. Nagelsmann's CV to date absolutely commands more respect from the players than Potter's did. Nagelsmann is by no means a sure bet but neither is Enrique.

The opening game was against Costa Rica though. And that was the only game they won at the tournament, having drawn against Germany and losing to both Japan and Morocco. Overall they were mediocre as fuck and while the squad was definitely worse than some of the Spain teams in the past they still seriously underperformed under Enrique at the World Cup.

Nagelsmann's my top dog in this race. Of anyone else available maybe Enrique would be second in line, but I don't really rate him that highly. Either way whoever the next manager is going to be I really hope they're appointed within the next few days to give us an outside chance in the UCL last stages. At this point it's a long shot at best but who knows, maybe a bit of "new manager bounce" could go a long way? And even if the UCL campaign was still a bust, at least having the new manager in charge for the remaining league games would give them a better understanding of the squad which should help a little going into next season and of course the summer transfer market.

Seeing as how the vote for the rule change was unanimous, I would guess fuck all effect. Why would they vote for something like that if it was bad for themselves?

Right now he's injured and has been since December but even before his injury he was definitely dropped. Mendy did play the last three games (2 PL and one EFL Cup) prior to the WC break but those were all games Kepa was injured for. The backup goalie on the bench for those games was Bettinelli.

Of those players I would expect only Colwill to have a solid chance of making the squad. Maatsen is an interesting player but since we already have Chilwell, Cucurella and Hall I don't see him making it, unless something drastic happens such as Chilwell demanding a move to City or somehow managing to cut our losses with Cucurella at a decent value. The rest aren't good enough and in Lukaku's case there are too many burnt bridges for him to still come back. But yeah either way like you said there are going to be lots of players leaving, both from the loanee group as well as the current first team squad. For me, these are the almost certain ones to go: Azpi Sarr Ampadu Maatsen Bakayoko (finally) Hudson-Odoi Aubameyang Pulisic Ziyech Zakaria (loan expires) Of this group I would be surprised, and in some cases also disappointed, if more than two of them stayed beyond the season. This bunch won't get us big fees but just clearing all their costs off the books would already be good business. Azpi, Auba and Bakayoko will probably have to be given free transfers to attract interest in them but as long as their wages get off the salary bill it will be good. If we can find buyers for Sarr and Ampadu then maybe £5M each? Maatsen should definitely go for a minimum £10M based on his good performances this season for Burnley. CHO, Pulisic and Ziyech are kind of hard to estimate because we don't yet know how many clubs will be interested in them but £10-15M each should definitely be a realistic value to expect. Let's say £50M for the whole lot which should be on the safe side of things. Should we manage a clean break and get rid off all of them, that would mean around £40-50M a year off the salary bill and also £25M a year saved in amortisation costs. Remaining book values for this lot is somewhere in the region of £30M (for Pulisic, Ziyech, Aubameyang) so anything above that overall for these players would also net the club a one-off 'profit' on the books for the next financial year. Add up all the figures together and it's already the loss of next years CL revenue covered, assuming the club can pull off these departures and we don't get stuck with them which would be terrible. The secondary group of potential departures: Mendy Chalobah Kovacic Mount Gallagher Loftus-Cheek Of the second group some will definitely still be at the club next season but I would expect at least a few of them to go as well. These are the players who can bring in the most money if sold. Four of them are academy graduates whose fees would be pure profit on the books and in the cases of Mendy and Kovacic their remanining book values are far lower than the prices we could get for them if they're put on the market. If for example Mendy, Mount and Gallagher got sold for a total of £90M (divide that how you will) that would be around £80M pure profit as well as reducing salary costs by another £10M a year. Overall across both groups there's lots of players who should, at least on paper, attract plenty of interest and decent enough fees to cover for the loss of UCL footy next year as well as reduce costs significantly going forward. How it all plays out in real life remains to be seen though, since every club now knows we need a significant amount of sales to both balance the books and also trim down the squad size so there's going to be a lot of haggling and lowballing for sure.

How exactly is he the victim of the new ownership? Are we just going to pretend his performances in 2022 weren't absolute shite and that he was unfairly dropped when Potter came in? Due to his continuous mistakes there were lots of people screaming for Kepa to play even when Tuchel was still in charge but the managerial change just made the decision a lot easier. The only one to be blamed for Mendy not playing is Mendy himself.

Yeah sadly for my nation he was a fucking monster last night. Was very impressed by him.

Difference between those two is Thuram is available on a freebie next summer and Frankfurt are saying the asking price for Muani will be 100M€. 😂

Yeah now that you mentioned it the article 45.12 makes it quite clear so that's a relief. If needed the easiest one to remove from CL list would be Bettinelli and he could be replaced by Bergström on the B list.

Would assume next season he'll switch to the number 13 shirt he wore at River Plate and Benfica. It's currently occupied by Bettinelli and I don't think he can give it away mid-season.

- For Omari I believe it was WBA who pulled the plug so not sure if that counts as a cock up? Ziyech most definitely was. - Xavier Simons is on loan till the end of the season at Hull anyway so there's really no rush to make it permanent? It could easily just be agreed for the summer and if we get a fee it would be counted on the 23/24 financial year which would be better for us re FFP anyway. - Bakayoko has mostly been on his way to Turkey, hasn't he? There was some talk of a Lyon move last night but when that went to shit it was reported the move to Turkey was back on the cards. The window is still open there so something could yet happen. - Slonina loan would have been good. Maybe loan him back to the MLS where the season starts in a couple of weeks? - Gallagher himself didn't want to go to Everton and can you blame him? Nobody else wanted to buy him on a permanent deal. Also here it's better to sell in the summer and cash in the profits for 23/24 books. - Webster, Vale and Rankine could definitely have benefited from loans, yeah. - Sarr to Sevilla was never on? Just need to hope he plays enough to trigger the obligation at Monaco lol, though I doubt it.

There was already one spot open and Jorginho being gone clears another one so only need to drop one more if we want to fill all three new spots. Since we already had more club-trained players registered than was required so the one to be removed could either be club-trained, association-trained or non-HG. I'm not sure if rules would allow the removal of Bettinelli? If the registration rules state that the squad must have three senior goalkeepers registered then it's not going to be possible but if it's allowed we could just remove Bettinelli and replace him with an academy keeper on the B list. It would be very, very unlikely that he would play anyway.

Like fuck he did. Are you really saying PSG, owned by the state of Qatar and paying Mbappe €4M a week, couldn't afford to pay Ziyech's £100K/wk wages and that he agreed to lower his salary to go there? I call bullshit on that. Even at Ziyech's full salary PSG have around 15-16 players who earn more than him and most by a factor of at least 2.

They can all be registered. The rules allow for a maximum of three new players after the January window, though there has to be room in the squad list for every new addition. In the group stage we had one spot open and Jorginho left so that's two players who can be added. Ziyech was also going to leave to free up the space for a third addition but that seems to have fallen through so we need to remove either him or someone else if we want to add a third newcomer. But yeah out of Enzo/Mudryk/Felix/Badiashile/Madueke/DDF we can only add three and I'd bet on the ones you mentioned.

Yeah neither club have released an official statement for it (which I think is pretty weird) but even the RB Leipzig sporting director Eberl came out a couple weeks ago saying it's clear he's moving and even name dropped Chelsea.

Molde's season already ended so it wouldn't have counted. For the same reason Auba could still have moved to MLS or some other league where the season is currently off, but not to a European club.

The top Argentinian journo is saying contract till 2031 for Enzo so same 8,5 years as Mudryk. Makes a huge difference for amortisation costs and FFP. On 8,5 years it's just €14M a year whereas with a 5 year deal it's €24M.

Absolutely. Hasn't always been perfect but the ambition and the right attitude is very clearly there. There were always going to be some initial growing pains in this new era but I'm very confident the end result will be good.