What to do with these fringe/academy lads?

[Kev0909]

Szoboslai in midfield is a worry for me. He's nowhere near good enough. Even if Zubimendi arrives ves I still think we are light on quality there, we have numbers yes but not quality.
I just think to bridge the gap on Arsenal and City we need at least two really good players.
That might yet happen so hopefully I'm wrong. I just think we are looking at a lot of "ifs". I like Quansah but I'm really not sure he's ready to be the long term answer and I've always been of the opinion that Konate is well overrated by our own fan base and that's without his fitness record.
I'm hopeful rather than optimistic for the new season. I hope I'm wrong so we'll see how it pans out.
There's a lot of expectation from some fans on youngsters. They very rarely pan out to be anything other than squad players at bigger clubs ImO. They're just bait for funds.
Sounds a grim outlook but just my opinion and how I'm currently seeing it. I'm seriously hoping that Slot isn't the fall guy for frugality,the "market value" bullshit from Hughes is not something we wanted to hear but something we pretty much knew was on the cards.

Not the only one, I see very average all over to be honest, some players at the back, especially in midfield, and the attack wasn't exactly the best all the time either with a few players letting us down.

Miles off the top, other teams below making moves & gaining ground, whilst FSG just netflix n chill

[Insidious]

Szoboslai in midfield is a worry for me. He's nowhere near good enough. Even if Zubimendi arrives ves I still think we are light on quality there, we have numbers yes but not quality.
I just think to bridge the gap on Arsenal and City we need at least two really good players.
That might yet happen so hopefully I'm wrong.

We'll have a better picture at the end of the window.

We need to register a 25-man squad and to do that, we need to trim a bit of fat, as we have a good number of players.

The most sensible thing to do if we wish to improve the quality is to sell our fringe/weaker players and bring in stronger ones.

If (for example) we sold Carvalho to free up a space, but nobody comes in, that's a weakening of the squad. However, if Carvalho (probably number 6 in terms of our list of 6 "forwards") departs to allow a quality player to come in (such as Zubimendi) then it's a net improvement to the squad - different positions, I understand.

- We need to continue to sell fringe players. This "raises the floor"
- We need to continue to develop promising players. This creates opportunities for sales or for development from within.
- We need to buy quality players. This "raises the floor" AND the "ceiling" which is what we all want.

[Steveo]

It’s hilarious seeing the squad described like cut of beef.

[Insidious]

It’s hilarious seeing the squad described like cut of beef.

There are lots of colloquialisms - "trim the dead wood" is another, though I usually think of that as a quality issue and honestly think it's more disrespectful to the players. Not my intention anyway.

But however crassly or politely we put it, the point remains - to make a 25-man squad, we had too many players. So first you make a couple of sales - freeing up a space is a big tick, receiving some money another big tick - and then you go out and buy decent players.

The quality of your 25-man squad goes up (if you recruit well!) which everyone wants.

Buying before selling (when you have a big squad) runs the risk of not being able to register senior players, which makes for poor squad harmony and is also just really financially wasteful.

[darrenpotter]

Approximately 9m

Have we not sold most these options to 3rd parties? I think with couthino we sold his potential add ons and made more then if we kept full ownership of them

[Insidious]

I just think to bridge the gap on Arsenal and City we need at least two really good players.

Just to pick up on a single point as well -

- 7 points behind Arsenal
- 9 points behind Man City

Arsenal had so few injuries to first-team players last season - they basically got to play their preferred staring XI like 90% of the time (feel free to correct me, it certainly "felt" that way) so whilst I agree we need to continue to improve the squad via the market, I really don't think we are "far" away or anything - though a new manager implementing some tweaked ideas means we can expect some teething issues irrespective of how few or how many we bring in, to be fair.

[teesred]

Just to pick up on a single point as well -

- 7 points behind Arsenal
- 9 points behind Man City

Arsenal had so few injuries to first-team players last season - they basically got to play their preferred staring XI like 90% of the time (feel free to correct me, it certainly "felt" that way) so whilst I agree we need to continue to improve the squad via the market, I really don't think we are "far" away or anything - though a new manager implementing some tweaked ideas means we can expect some teething issues irrespective of how few or how many we bring in, to be fair.

Hope you're view is right. The way I see it is that we've finished behind them twice now without really adding a great deal of difference aside from Macallister. I don't expect us to catch City,nobody is going to but the one thing you can't fault Utd for is their intent. They spend it frivolously but they atleast show they're willing to go all in. Their model and budget are different/,bigger but when we are clearly falling behind it's difficult at the moment to see where we are making strides to catch up.
The constant frugality and to be honest pure fucking tightness is becoming incredibly irritating.

That might be different by the end of the window but at the moment it's not looking like it.