The Chop List - Summer 2016

[flashingqwerty]

10 hours ago, skarroki said:

From that list I'd say that McCormack and Lyden are basically already out the door. I think Elphick will go who you haven't listed and I can see Gardner and Amavi getting sold too. 

Richards we'll have to pay off which won't happen, Hutton and Bacuna are fancied by Bruce so not going anywhere unless we're offered money we can't afford to turn down. 

Think the likes of Sarkic, RHM, CBT, Davis and O'Hare could all potentially be out on loan by the end of the month too. 

Arent those you 5/6 youngsters that are to be brought into the senior squad as cover?

[rodders0223]

Surely somebody has got to want to take Elphick and Gardner off our hands?

...or for all his talk about previous regimes, is Tony still handing out utterly ridiculous and unwarranted contracts to players we now cannot shift?
 

[gilbertoAVFC]

Our squad is so big and is shockingly managed. How have we not got rid of more players?

I can tell you fairly confidently that Bjarnasan will be as good as Bacuna at best, is 29 and was given 3.5 years. Adomah is here until he is 32, McCormack 33, Elmohamady 32, Whelan 35, Taylor 32.

I'm not writing off all these players' careers but can we not hedge our bets just a little bit?? I bet they are all on 30k+ as well. Honestly the short-termism at the club is truly baffling, and the contracts we hand-out offer no motivation for these players to actually perform because they all have 3 years left!

[Jareth]

5 minutes ago, gilbertoAVFC said:

Our squad is so big and is shockingly managed. How have we not got rid of more players?

I can tell you fairly confidently that Bjarnasan will be as good as Bacuna at best, is 29 and was given 3.5 years. Adomah is here until he is 32, McCormack 33, Elmohamady 32, Whelan 35, Taylor 32.

I'm not writing off all these players' careers but can we not hedge our bets just a little bit?? I bet they are all on 30k+ as well. Honestly the short-termism at the club is truly baffling, and the contracts we hand-out offer no motivation for these players to actually perform because they all have 3 years left!

But we want Elmo, Whelan, Adomah and Taylor to stay.

[gilbertoAVFC]

1 hour ago, Jareth said:

But we want Elmo, Whelan, Adomah and Taylor to stay.

Yeah, for now. The point is they are all kind of "high-risk" players who would become deadwood if we went up (which is the plan, right?)

[Jareth]

5 minutes ago, gilbertoAVFC said:

Yeah, for now. The point is they are all kind of "high-risk" players who would become deadwood if we went up (which is the plan, right?)

For sure, but you can bet cha bottom dollar there'll be teams like us (Sunderland) who will want that calibre of players - we'll have no problem moving them on. I would be keeping Elmo and Taylor in the prem though.

[AvfcRigo82]

On 04/08/2017 at 12:41, rodders0223 said:

Surely somebody has got to want to take Elphick and Gardner off our hands?

...or for all his talk about previous regimes, is Tony still handing out utterly ridiculous and unwarranted contracts to players we now cannot shift?
 

I doubt that mate.

More the fact Elphick is just shit.

[StewieGriffin]

Or that we have a financial valuation of a player (who has just become slightly more valuable to us given that we just sold Baker) that other clubs havent met as yet

[Mark Albrighton]

So assuming Bacuna is sold, I think that makes the senior outgoings as being -

Sold - Sanchez, Veretout, Cissokho, Baker, Bacuna, Gil*, Amavi*

Loan - Gollini, Tshibola 

Released - Kozak 

*basically sold

Bit of guesswork but based on the figures being circulated that's maybe just over £25m raised through outgoings (including all the Amavi cash now).

Those wages off the books, no idea - £200k a week? Obviously that will have been eroded by our incomings.

[rjw63]

On 7/11/2017 at 19:48, theboyangel said:

3. Karate

4. Monkey.

Edited August 11, 2017 by rjw63

[Condimentalist]

On 05/07/2017 at 21:35, PatrickCousens said:

Usually the transfer window is a time for excitement about new players, and I am very pleased with the Terry signing. I've really come round to it in a big way. Clearly we also need a keeper (probably Johnstone), we know Bruce wants Whelan (and you have to think it'll happen), and personally I'd like to see a quality attacking player come in given that this was our main downfall last year. 

This is all well and good, but our squad size is ridiculous. In many ways therefore I'd argue that pruning the squad effectively is at least as important as who comes in. Currently we have 34 players in and around the first team including likely signings - that's far too many to maintain the sort of solid, driven team spirit we need to mount a title challenge. It's a long season but I think we need to get this down to 25/26 max - which means cutting 9 or so.

This thread is for discussion about where that might happen.

Goalkeepers: Jed Steer, Mark Bunn, Sam Johnstone (probably) [3] 

Assuming Johnstone comes in you'd think we'll stick here, although I do wonder whether Steer might think it's time to move on in which case we may need to buy again somewhere. Obviously if Johnstone doesn't happen we need another number 1, it's an important position.

Defenders: Alan Hutton, Richie de Laet, Micah Richards, James Bree, Tommy Elphick, John Terry, James Chester, Nathan Baker, Neil Taylor, Jordan Amavi, Aly Cissokho [11]

We're way overloaded at the back - right back especially. I'd love to ship Richards but it's not going to happen, but this means we have four right backs even before you consider that Bacuna can play here. I see Hutton says he's staying but it might be time to be ruthless. He's been a good servant but one of him or de Laet has to go in my view as they're not young but retain resale value. 

Elsewhere Elphick isn't up to it and you'd think he'd have suitors - I'd see him go given that Jedinak and Richards can play there as needed. 

On the left you'd think Amavi will leave, which is a shame IMO but understandable from all sides. If Cissokho is happy to stay as our back-up left back then we're OK here, if not we'll need to replace him.

Midfielders: Jedinak, Bacuna, Tshibola, Lansbury, Hourihane, Veretout, Bjarnason, Gardner, Lyden, Gil, Adomah, Green, Grealish, Whelan (probably) [14]

Again, 14 midfielders is absurd. I don't really know why we signed Bjarnason for this squad but he's obviously going to stay. I'm not totally sure why we're in for Whelan either. On ability I'd happily ship Gardner but I don't think we will, and he seems a good character anyway. Veretout is probably a decent player at this level but if we can get £6m or so for him he's an obvious choice to leave. Gil will surely leave, Lyden should go out on loan, and Tshibola too if Bruce isn't going to use him. If someone wants to take Bacuna I'm open to it but he's a decent utility player so not too fussed either way. I think it's a big season for Green, and I like Adomah, but even still I wouldn't mind some additional quality on the wing if the right player is available. 

Forwards: McCormack, Kodjia, Hogan, Agbonlahor, Hepburn-Murphy, Davis (6) 

One area we're not overloaded in IMO, despite the numbers. Hogan and Gabby are both very injury prone, we have no idea how RMC will perform and frankly the same for RHM. Davis should head out on loan, maybe RHM too if he's not ready. We're stuck with Gabby but we're in real danger on being over-reliant on Kodjia again IMO. Striker is so vital so I'd like us to strengthen here - maybe someone who can also play wing. I've seen Walters mentioned so maybe Bruce is feeling the same. 

The chop list

So whittling down all of the above, I think we should realistically be looking to get rid of:

- Hutton/de Laet

- Elphick

- Amavi

- Veretout

- Gil

- Tshibola (loan)

- Lyden (loan)

- Davis (loan)

- Hepburn-Murphy (loan)

Thoughts?

 

Interesting to revisit this now that the window has closed. 

Keepers are as expected, but in defence we brought in Samba and sold Baker. I can see why it happened from a financial perspective but would have preferred Elphick to be the one to go from a footballing one. Hutton should have gone too, especially with Elmohamady coming in. We also shipped both Cissokho and Amavi which leaves us short at LB. Terry has been a little wobbly too but I think he'll settle.

In midfield we added Whelan as expected, with less expected additions of Onomah, Elmohamady and Snodgrass. Bacuna, Tish, Veretout, Gil, Gardner and Lyden have all departed one way or another so we did balance ourselves out a bit here which is especially important given the emergence of youngsters like O Hare and Doyle Hayes who look like they have a role to play. 

Up top we haven't changed too much but the emergence of Keinan Davis as a contender to start games transforms the options available to us and makes McCormack look superfluous. Nonetheless, it's a long season and we may well need him. Fingers crossed Kodjia is back soon.

Overall I think it's been a decent window. We look a little imbalanced in terms of right sided vs left sided players but that's a relatively minor gripe and I think Bruce has done decent business overall.