NamelesslinkenholtroyalSouth Coast Royal It must be a real quandary for the club at the moment over what players to sign and what players to offer new contracts to especially in light of FFP where we fans are in the dark.
Much has been made of the progress shown by Tommy Mac and Holmes, which in both cases has been encouraging, but can you see them being good enough for Premier League football in 6 or 7 months time?
Will Morro still have the legs to go with his tremendous commitment?
Seeing the sorry state of the WBA squad and Fulham's before they undertook a swift overhaul it is so difficult to know if players that get you to the Premier League are going to be good enough when they get there.
The first thing I suppose is to get there, so do you try between now and Monday to improve a squad that look distinct possibles for a play-off spot and a bit short for automatic or do you just suck it and see and once again "go with what we have got"?
Most of us seem to be of the opinion that centre-back improvements aren't the most pressing.
So, rather than looking at bringing in a centre-back should the club be looking more at the winger and the back-up striker that many feel will strengthen the squad and give added options during the run-in, especially if money is as tight as we are led to believe?
In a way I think we are some way off being good enough for the Premier League as it stands but if we don't take what is the best opportunity for some time do we then next season start again with a possibly weakened squad with Richards and Olise , two of our better players gone?
It is a quandary for all the clubs in and around the top 6 because, as we know, this division can be very hard to get out of (upwards) as many much bigger clubs have discovered over the years -that quandary is greater now because of financial pressures, even though the 3 relegated clubs have the benefit of tidy parachute payments.
The next 3 days will be interesting and let's hope that we do some business to improve our chances.
Interesting bit about where we would need improvements for the Premier League.
Say we got promoted this is where i see the gaps in the current formation to survive in the Prem
Goalkeeping
I think we would need someone with Premier league experience to compete with Rafael. Maybe Butland not that I dont think the others are good enough I just dont think they are yet give them all a season on loan at league 1 champ level and see how they do.
LB Richards is good enough but there is no cover a seasoned pro would be good to give competition and back up.
RB Yiadom is good enough as first choice, need a proper RB unless Holmes moves there permanently. Yiadom is also perma crocked
CB Moore Is good enough and Mcintyre, Morrison and Holmes are good enough to fill in but we will need someone here
CM Laurent and Rinhomota are good enough but we have been very lucky that neither of them have picked up an injury this year realistically would need 2 here as another option / back up
CAM Olise, Swift and Ejaria are both good enough and should cover this
RAM Ejaria and Olise can play here and has done well but this is not his natural position this is an area that needs addressing.
LAM Meite is the real deal and will only get better, no cover though
CF Joao deserves a chance to step up and will, (with or without us), Puscas is world class we have just got to make him fit but in a full prem season you would want a third option and that is not there at the moment.
so to survive in the premier league we need in my opinion-
1 GK, 1CB, 1LB, 1RB, 2CM, 2RAM, 1 LAM and 1CF thats to give cover in each position and the loans and predicted OOC players leaving (Aluko and Baldock)
Meite plays on the right surely ?
For what it’s worth, if we went up I think we would either need to spend huge sums to strengthen right through the team or spend very little, keep faith in who we have and expect to be strong enough to give promotion another shot.
I don’t think ny of our current players are guaranteed to be good enough for the PL although plenty give grounds for optimism. I think we’d need quite a few players with PL experience to provide us with a backbone.
The good news is that should we go up I would expect Dai Yongge to spend loads of money. The issue would be how wisely he spent it and who was advising him.
I would be interested to see stats to back up what I am about to say but I think the most successful teams are the ones that go up and despite the amount of signings they make, only a few displace the ones that just earned promotion.
Sign too few you potentially get us in 2013, sign to many, you get Fulham a few seasons back. It's a generalisation of course and there are exemptions like our 06/07 team barely making any signings because they'd just romped the Championship and at the time, additions weren't needed.