HalfTimePost

I think the quality of the macron home shirt has been fine, mine looks brand new and its been worn a lot this year. I'd like a tight-fitting one a la the Napoli/Lazio shirts theyve made but other than that I've been happy so far.

Italian-esque tight fitting remake of the '82 shirt for next season and I will be very happy.

Is there a reason why we have never had a look-a-like of the European Winning away kit? It must be copyrighted or something for every brand we've had since to pass over it. It would be an instant hit IMO. The closest is the white Nike with sky blue pinstripes- beautiful kit. Had Reo-Coker on the back for some reason though :S

Next seasons home kit is rumoured to be like it isnt it?

Stan, Warnock, Dunne and Makoun are already confirmed gone or contracts expire. That is £170k a week of wages off the bill.

Lichaj's contract is running out and there is no noise about him being offered a new one.

Bent has already said to people at the awards night there is no chance he will be here this season and has already been in the papers talking about potentially leaving within about 5 minutes of us being confirmed as safe. 

In Given we have one of the few players willing to take a step down in wages in order to be getting first team football as he's already proved by coming to us.

Hutton, I think just wants to play, theres no way he could have enjoyed his time here. We will absolutely struggle to get rid of him but I think for £1m Mallorca, a championship team or a scottish team will take a punt on him. Will he really want to train with the reserves all season? Possibly a loan I guess.

Im 100% confident Given, Dunne, Warnock, Makoun, Lichaj, Hutton and Bent won't be here next season.

Ireland will be tougher. Hopefully we can get him to the MLS or maybe even QPR.

So, in their place we'll sign:

GK (backup),

CB,

LB,

RB (backup), 

CM/DM,

Striker

and then I think we'll also sign:

1 CM/AM

1 Wide Forward / Winger

8 signings.

However assuming those players mentioned above all leave (a difficult task in itself), a very quick look at players who will be 21 and over and possibly named in our squad next season:

 

KEEPERS

Guzan

Siegrist

 

FULLBACKS

Lowton

Stevens

Bennett

 

CENTRE BACKS

Vlaar

Baker

Clark

 

MIDFIELDERS

Westwood

Delph

Sylla

Herd

Bannan

Ahmadi

Gardner

 

WINGERS/ATTACKING MID

NZogbia

Albrighton

Bowery

Holman

 

STRIKERS

Gabby

Benteke

Weimann

Delfouneso

 

Is 23 players, leaving us with 2 slots for other players to fill. I think it is absolutely vital we sign 1 CB and 1 LB. Those are priorities 1 and 2.

Then we have to start looking at the rest and who can go. 

Siegrist hasn't done a lot this season from what I've seen, it mostly appears to be Brad Watkins (is Benj injured?) loan him out to the lower Championship and sign a young backup keeper.

Delfouneso has start 22 games for Blackpool, with 18 appearances from the bench and scored 6 goals. He can go too. Maybe another loan, he's still only 22 but I think thats it for him now to be honest. We can then sign a striker, my choice being Alfred Finnbogason to rival Benteke (or replace him if he leaves).

In Attacking Mid/Wingers I really wouldn't mind who left, none of them have done enough/aren't good enough. I expect Bowery will stay as he's Lamberts signing and brand new. Atleast one of the other 3 will go. First to be replaced by a Wide Forward a la Gabby. If we offload a second from this group then a new CAM please.

In midfielders Herd, Bannan and KEA can go, again I expect KEA to be kept as he's Lamberts signing, friend to Vlaar (I assume).  The other 2 can go, both to be replaced with some form of Midfielder, 1 DM and 1 AM ideally to slot around Westwood.

Stevens can also go to be replaced by a backup RB.

Players to Loan

Players that need to go for out on loan as they are nearing 21 and would take up a place in the squad list next season or in 14/15.

Johnson, Siegrist, Williams, Carruthers (rumours a while back he's leaving?), Burke. I would also like to see Graham loaned out.

(Disclaimer: Im going to say now that I probably shouldnt have made a post like this before I've eaten breakfast, I apologise if I've made some glaring error)

Been a lot of talk about Poyet leaving Brighton since they lost their Play Off Semi. 

I'd take Liam Bridcutt and Lewis Dunk from them as I'd imagine they would be looking to make the step up to the prem anyway, even more so if their manager leaves.

Gunna push the boat out and guess:

United

City

Chelsea

Arsenal

Spurs

Liverpool

Swansea

Villa

Newcastle

Fulham

West Brom

West Ham

Norwich

Southampton

Everton

Stoke

Sunderland

Cardiff

Hull

Watford

Out:

Given, Hutton, Stephens, Lichaj, Warnock, Dunne, Makoun, Ireland, Herd, Bannan, KEA, NZogbia, Bent, Delfouneso

The ones in bold can be given another year as it would be a heck of a squad change to lose and replace all of those, but I really wouldn't mind if we lost all of those.

Estimate about £15-20m in fee's and £390k a week in wages from the non-bold players

And around about £25-30m in fee's & £520k a week including the bold players?

Strengthen the squad (all over. Defence and midfield key, aswell as good replacements for Bent and Given), Keep Benteke, Lowton and Westwood:

If we do this I think we'll finish 7th, and establish ourselves as the new Everton (who I expect to be bottom half with a late push towards relegation next season, unfortunately, i like them).

Strengthen squad generally but lose Benteke: Lower Midtable. Just.

Dont strengthen well enough + lose Benteke: Relegated.

Dont strengthen well enough + keep Benteke: Won't happen. He'll be off no matter what if he see's us doing nothing.

 

I used the term DM because his better qualities are defensive: tackling

No.

 

But neither Delph or Ramires are DM's.

 

What are they?

 

Do they really have to have a Football Manager assigned role?

If so, I guess I would go with Advanced Playmaker with their job role set to 'Support'.

However I wouldn't argue if somebody suggested a Box-to-Box Midfielder with job role set to 'Attack'.

But neither Delph or Ramires are DM's.

Mancini to be sacked this week according to The Times

Lost 4-2 on Penalties.

Gone to extra time in the Play Offs vs Sunderland.

1-1 at the moment and both teams are down to 10 men.

We went 1-0 up early on, Sunderlands twitter describing it as a low shot after we nicked possession on the edge of their box.

Agnew equalised for them on 31 minutes with a 35yrd shot which took a deflection on it's way in.

We went down to 10 men after we brought one of their players down who was clean through on goal.

Sukar was sent off for Sunderland for a foul on Grealish in extra time

No word on who was sent off or who scored for us as it appears Sunderlands twitter account only knows Grealish's name.

Update: 1-1 Still just gone half time in extra time

I'll be near suicidal if Wigan win Tuesday.

I just hold out faith that surely, surely one of

Southampton (Sunderland, Stoke)

Sunderland (Southampton, Spurs)

Norwich (West Brom, Man City)

and Newcastle (QPR, Arsenal)

will lose both of their remaining games... Surely? 

 

Who would Moyes take with him to Old Trafford then?  I think Baines is probably better than Evra and Fellaini is good enough to fit into a midfield which is starting to look a bit like dads army.

Fellaini yes , Baines possibly. Wonder if he'll have an eye on Benteke

 

Cant see it, Moyes isn't one to have too many great strikers on the books. He'll play with one striker, RVP and use Hernandez as his backup I imagine.

Even if Rooney leaves I can't see him buying somebody like Benteke to replace him.

Think he'll play 4-2-3-1 

                 De Gea

Rafael  Jones  Vidic  Baines

         Carrick  Fellaini

Valencia   Kagawa  Young*

                   RVP

*But possibly a new signing. (However, when Villa were on our spending spree though I always thought a Baines+Young combination would be lethal, different styles of wing play giving some variation from out wide. Not as good, but similar to how I think Walker + Downing had quite a good partnership for us under Houllier. But I digress.)

Surprised nobody has said Gus Poyet yet.

As soon as the rumours swirling around about Fergie came out I said Moyes to Utd and Poyet to Everton.

Our midfield is definitely lacking something. Just in current form I couldnt pinpoint one of the three and say 'they are the one that needs dropping'. We need somebody who is a bit better at tackling and breaking up play and we also need somebody who is going to score some goals from midfield (Gardner maybe?). But I think Delph and Sylla are both playing really well and Westwood is the player our midfield needs to be created around.

Had a very good game, probably his best for us in all honesty. He's also got the most desire to score a goal out of the whole team. Last 2 or 3 games I've seen him play he'll be making some absolutely cracking runs on the left wing. Left wing is probably not the right word, he essentially plays it as though he's a left forward standing right on the oppositions Right back.

He did it for about 10 minutes straight versus Sunderland and a couple of times vs Chelsea. Some great runs, just nobody ever looked up to find the right pass, I think Westwood tried it once maybe yesterday but it didnt quite come off.

As impressed as I was with him yesterday his defensive positioning was lacking at times but fortunately he wasn't found out as Weimann and Gabby (depending who was on his side) would track back and essentially play LB as Bennett kept finding himself more central than he needed to be (he was marking a player, and it may have been a tactical decision but he should have left that player to the CBs and watched the player on the left).  

It meant that once or twice we would clear the ball and Gabby/Weimann would be absolutely nowhere near Benteke's flick-ons and thus completely collapsing a couple of potential counter attacks. But overall I think he did really well yesterday.

...is belgian guy actually Benteke? 

If he'd just applied himself and not been a complete prick he could easily have had that here.

QPR will be the only club willing to pay his wage and with them getting relegated I think that ship has sailed for him. I agree, he'll go to the MLS 

Looks like some talent is coming through again then. Where does Sellars play? Striker?.

Think next year may be an opportunity to loan out Grealish and Graham so that they can be ready to start breaking into the first team in 14/15.

Please lets just have that Lazio Shirt with a Claret body.

Please.

Pretty Please.

                    Guzan

Lowton   Vlaar   Dragovic  Bennett      

           Westwood Delph

Weimann    De Jong    Agbonlahor

                   Benteke

Would look like quite a nice little team.

New left back and a new midfielder in that team and I would be happy with our starting 11.

Add to that Backup Keeper, Finnbogason to backup Teke, a winger to backup Weimann/Gabby, Murphy to backup De Jong and I would be ecstatic but I'm not sure we'll see that much movement on players coming in.

 

Anybody think we could get Siem De Jong from Ajax? Personally think he is maybe out of our range but there were some big rumours about him going to Newcastle so presuming that was possible I could see no reason why we couldn't get him.

 

He's been quoted as saying he wants to leave Ajax for either the Premier League or the Bundesliga but only to a team that tries to play football and utilizes the midfield.

 

He's 24, so relatively young still but is also Ajax's captain so has a decent amount of experience.

 

The Newcastle rumours floating around were pricing him at £9m so he'd definitely be a marquee signing if we could get him in.

 

I thought it was Luuk De Jong who Newcastle were after.

 

They were linked with both.

Anybody think we could get Siem De Jong from Ajax? Personally think he is maybe out of our range but there were some big rumours about him going to Newcastle so presuming that was possible I could see no reason why we couldn't get him.

He's been quoted as saying he wants to leave Ajax for either the Premier League or the Bundesliga but only to a team that tries to play football and utilizes the midfield.

He's 24, so relatively young still but is also Ajax's captain so has a decent amount of experience.

The Newcastle rumours floating around were pricing him at £9m so he'd definitely be a marquee signing if we could get him in.