The Transfer Window

WHU_Champo_league_in_7_years

eskimoking said:

I like the signings we’ve made so far but squad size really bothers me. If it’s true that Vlasic and Benrahma are leaving too that’s 9 out and only five in from a squad that was too small already! It’s mad. Individually, I don’t oppose any of the outgoings but collectively we’re being left so short on options. Really hope there’s a big plan at play.

9 out....errrr

eskimoking

Not sure if there’s a question involved, but I read it as doubting that it’s 9?
Noble, Yarmo, Fredericks, Masuaku, Martin, Diop, Benrahma, Vlasic, Kral

IronHerb

When did we sell Benrahma?

Slacker

The question is how many of those featured much or at all?

WHU_Champo_league_in_7_years

eskimoking said:

Not sure if there’s a question involved, but I read it as doubting that it’s 9?
Noble, Yarmo, Fredericks, Masuaku, Martin, Diop, Benrahma, Vlasic, Kral

Do Martin and Kral count? And Vlasic

Think if we're counting those we may as well count Ashby, Coventry and Trott as incomings as they will get at least as many minutes as Martin and Kral did

Also, has Benrahma left? Technically Vlasic hasn't even left yet

Hamstew

To be fair eski said "if it's true" about Benrahma and Vlasic.

Fortuneseeker

Five of the 9 were on the bench for the last home game of the 21/22 season v Manchester City. Were Diop & Benrahma injured for that match?

Pearces_Left_Foot

We might need to sell to a) free up wages b) get extra money in to buy new players. If we buy players then can't sell the others we could end up with a bloated wage bill maybe ?

EXETERHAMMER

So no knew CB for the Forest match. Let's just hope Dawson is fit.

ASLEFshrugged

We don't need to replace David Martin, we've still got Darren Randolph and Nathan Trott as back up

OutcastLondoner

EXETERHAMMER said:

So no knew CB for the Forest match. Let's just hope Dawson is fit.

Johnson did pretty well against City, so I don't think it's a disaster if he has to play against Forest.

jay_in_cpt

OutcastLondoner said:

EXETERHAMMER said:

So no knew CB for the Forest match. Let's just hope Dawson is fit.

Johnson did pretty well against City, so I don't think it's a disaster if he has to play against Forest.

Not a disaster, but by no means ideal ⚒️

IronHerb

Hamstew said:

To be fair eski said "if it's true" about Benrahma and Vlasic.

eskimoking said:

Not sure if there’s a question involved, but I read it as doubting that it’s 9?
Noble, Yarmo, Fredericks, Masuaku, Martin, Diop, Benrahma, Vlasic, Kral

Not here he didn't.

eskimoking

Hamstew said:

To be fair eski said "if it's true" about Benrahma and Vlasic.

Thank you for reading the post.

Hamstew

IronHerb said:

Hamstew said:

To be fair eski said "if it's true" about Benrahma and Vlasic.

eskimoking said:

Not sure if there’s a question involved, but I read it as doubting that it’s 9?
Noble, Yarmo, Fredericks, Masuaku, Martin, Diop, Benrahma, Vlasic, Kral

Not here he didn't.

He was answering the previous message.

OldCastleSwift

OutcastLondoner said:

EXETERHAMMER said:

So no knew CB for the Forest match. Let's just hope Dawson is fit.

Johnson did pretty well against City, so I don't think it's a disaster if he has to play against Forest.

He did well, all things considered, but the problem isn't just about who starts, IMO. Equally concerning is what happens if he or Zouma, or Cresswell for that matter, get injured in training today?

I think we had one defender on the bench on Sunday; an U23 RB with 6 minutes of PL football to his name.

I know we can drop Rice back there, but that means losing our best midfielder.

As Jay says, it's not a disaster, but I honestly don't think we should be in this situation this deep into the transfer window.

Pearces_Left_Foot

Interesting interview with Moyes by Graham hunter on YouTube basically saying he is trying to buy players for the top 6 and if he can’t get them he won’t sign a player for the sake of it

Lukerz

I don’t think you need to cover for every possible injury. Yes we are in a situation if Cresswell gets banned or injured (same as Zouma) we are in trouble, but you could apply that logic to Rice & Soucek. Then it’s Downes & Coventry. Or Antonio & Scamacca (then it’s nobody). Or Bowen; no other right-sided option.

The squad is:

4 GK: Fabianski, Areola, Randolph, Trott
4 CB: Zouma, Aguerd, Dawson, Ogbonna
4 FB: Coufal, Johnson, Cresswell, Ashby
4 CM: Rice, Soucek, Downes, Coventry
2 AM: Lanzini, Fornals
4 WF: Benrahma, Cornet, Bowen, Okoflex
2 ST: Antonio, Scamacca

24 players

Now you can argue Trott, Coventry, Okoflex & Ashby should not be options, but Trott has a squad number & has not been loaned out yet, Coventry, Okoflex & Ashby were all in the squad Sunday.

The squad is not in as bad a shape as the noise being made suggests. It’s short of a couple of options. Clearly, we probably want to upgrade on Coventry & Ashby, but then how do we give the most promising academy players a chance? We may also want another AM or wide player (better than Lanzini & Benrahma), but we do have options there.

But this is Moyes’ way. We have options, he wants to find players that are better, if he can get them, he’ll add them. At the moment, Coventry, Ashby & Okoflex may need to be called upon. I am sure he is after more established players with top 6 quality. He has streamlined the squad (I imagine Randolph will leave before the end of the window) & that brings the quality of the average player up. We are a club now that doesn’t want to settle for average or mediocre. Squad players who don’t contribute are moved on quickly & other players brought in. I’m happy with that method, in general. There will always be exceptions (I wanted Vlasic to stay another year), but I am happy with that approach as a general way of squad building.

OldCastleSwift

There are 24 players, but how many does Moyes trust and how many will he actually play?

He was obviously keen enough on Onana to drop £35m on him, which suggests he thinks that neither Downes or Coventry are ready for regular game time. He didn't play Oko-Flex last season despite the form of his preferred forwards, and I doubt Ashby and Trott will be given minutes unless there's an injury crisis, and even then I'm not convinced they would.

Moyes isn't Benrahma's biggest fan either so I'd argue that there are 6 of those 24 that he wouldn't choose to play unless he absolutely had to. There's time to address it, sure, but we're 62 days into an 83 day window and still have too many question marks, IMO.

buffybegood

Lukerz said:

24 players

Now you can argue Trott, Coventry, Okoflex & Ashby should not be options, but Trott has a squad number & has not been loaned out yet, Coventry, Okoflex & Ashby were all in the squad Sunday.

The squad is not in as bad a shape as the noise being made suggests. It’s short of a couple of options. Clearly, we probably want to upgrade on Coventry & Ashby, but then how do we give the most promising academy players a chance? We may also want another AM or wide player (better than Lanzini & Benrahma), but we do have options there.

Let's be honest, those 4 are only going to be used if someone breaks a leg (Coventry as an injury time sub on Sunday felt like trying to make a point), Trott's the 4th keeper regardless of whether he has a number or not (could be that Randolph goes instead of him). So that's realistically 20 senior players, of which at least 2 are long term injured (Aguerd 2+ months, and Ogbonna with be closer in a month (closer to what, certainly not full match fitness as something else was implied)).

In addition we had Dawson missing the last match and we know he's been managing a long term injury, and Antonio started the match with strapping to his knee. So I don't think the noise is unwarranted at all; we saw last season that Moyes is very reluctant to use players he has any doubts about, so padding the bench doesn't mean that we realistically have subs to be used.

Without Dawson, we have 17 senior players (including Antonio, and Downes who Moyes even said when he signed that he was not for right now, but I'm being generous), of whom 3 are keepers. 12 fit senior outfield players, plus Antonio with strapping and Downes who is not really for now.

How is that squad not in bad shape?

Slacker

Shifted out some bit part players, brought in the much demanded striker, a top class centre back, an exciting young midfield prospect, a proven premier league international left sided player, made permanent an international keeper and all done early in the window ( as opposed to the “why do we always leave it so late?” ), and still it’s not enough.

WHU_Champo_league_in_7_years

I'd rather have 18 that Moyes actively trusts and will give gametime to than a squad of 22 whereby we have 14 players Moyes trusts to play then have 8 player are only used as if there is an actual injury crisis and we have no choice

Pearces_Left_Foot

The team that started against city is pretty much the same team that finished 6th and 7th plus we now have a new striker and Cornet . I think with everyone fit our starting 11 is stronger and our bench maybe slightly worse . We still have 3 weeks to sign a few more. We won't be able to match the squad depth of the big boys maybe with some very shrewd signings we can get close but i think it will take time we will improve in small steps.

alderz

Slacker

But you’re making it sound like people are just being demanding. I think several people have given very thorough explanations of their concerns, and they feel broadly justified.

OutcastLondoner

Noble - definitely a loss. Didn't play much but was fine when he did and obviously brought a lot more.
Yarmo, Fredericks, Masuaku, Vlasic - played very few games and had very little impact. They came on only because there were no options.
Martin, Kral - Didn't even get one full 90.
Diop - He's a significant loss who must be replaced, regardless of what people think of his ability, he was needed during the season.

In: Aguerd, Downes, Cornet, Scamacca.

We had a lot of dead wood in the squad, so I'd say our *effective* squad size is pretty much the same or maybe bigger. We have options off the bench when we didn't last season - it was just Benrahma or Lanzini, depending on which one of them had started.

So I think talking about squad size is a bit misleading.

But we absolutely need to get in the left-back and probably a CB.

EXETERHAMMER

I think the fact that Moyes is reluctant to play the youngsters is half of the problem. Alese wanted to leave as he got no game time for example.
You can have a small squad including youngsters, but have to be willing to play any of them when needed otherwise injuries will always catch up with you.
My point is, play the youngsters if they are in the squad. This is how Rice got his chance.

alderz

But Rice also got his chance because he was ready for it. I always want the manager to give youngsters a go, but at the same time they need to be ready. Rice and Johnson have both broken through in the last few years, and Johnson in particular has only really broken in under Moyes. I really believe that if any of the youngsters seemed as good as the first team in training, they'd be playing in the first team.

EXETERHAMMER

Then Moyes needs to fill the squad with other players that he deems better than the youngsters and not just hold out for top 6 type players. Otherwise we will always be short.

OutcastLondoner

This probably seems a bit outlandish to say, but I think they might have in their mind a genuine attempt on the top 4 that might encourage Rice to stay. They have mostly gone for a quite high level of player and let go of a lot who they don't deem good enough. Of course, there are many teams with better squads and resources than us but those teams have underperformed and been inconsistent. With a few more effective subs last season, rather than the filler we had, we actually might have got top 4 because everyone else seemed desperate to fumble it. So they might be hoping that a similar situation can happen this year as well.

So I think they don't mind a smaller squad but want one that has more players who actually add to the team.

IronHerb

EXETERHAMMER said:

Then Moyes needs to fill the squad with other players that he deems better than the youngsters and not just hold out for top 6 type players. Otherwise we will always be short.

Then we but five or six League 1 / Championship players.