Honestly that 11 makes me feel a bit sick. It's so stale.One thing I will say is that we should be safe in the knowledge that our 'core' will largely stay in tact. This makes it easier for others to bed in.
A rested and reenergised first 11 of;
Lloris
Aurier/KWP Sanchez Jan Rose
Sissoko Winks Dier
Son Kane Alli
Can hold the fort to start the season, then new signings can be gradually eased in. Although as @Trix states if we get 2 early incomings then we should be able to bed them in and get them accustomed to Poch's way and understanding with other players.
The other new additions can be gradually integrated.
Look at Liverpool, Van Dijk and Allison bedded in immediately. Fabinho took a couple of months and Keita started strong but faded. They were all signed early too, so in that respect two early additions will see us through I'm sure.
Lots concerned about RB - For me LB equally as important. I'd keep Rose and move Davies to CB cover for Verts and emergency LB.
Watching Robertson and TAA for pool whip in crosses accurately and dangerously show exactly what we're lacking. The fact our fullbacks can't do this with any regularity dictates how much with we play with and to an extent determines how often the ball gets passed backwards or rotated round to the other side of the pitch.
For my money, Grimaldo would be the perfect upgrade in this respect. Is it asking too much to recruit competent personnel in KEY positions?
The main reason I mention recruiting personnel who can cross, is because Davies and Rose can't. For the life of them. They try. But they can't, and it often ends up with a turnover of possession after not beating the first man.Requires a change of playing style as much as a change of personnel.
Although we have played with wing backs at times, it's been a long time since we did so with the intention of firing in crosses.
It's often been done just to push the opposition full-backs backwards, and then we knock the ball inside to Dele/Eriksen.
Even when we play with 4 at the back, the wide midfielders don't really cross. They look to come inside an awful lot.
Kane rarely plays as a target man, so it's not often that he's actually in the box looking to get on the end of a cross.
Agreed, it needs to look a lot closer to something like this:Honestly that 11 makes me feel a bit sick. It's so stale.
I believe Poch will see this opportunity to go back to what made us successful in his first couple of years now we're back home. He knew going to Wembley, we had to change the way we played due to the size of he pitch and therefore this season was always going to be hard to try and change our approach mid season when we returned.
I think that is why the majority of our targets are going to be a good age and with pace to be able Poch to return the team to high press and make us more aggressive across the pitch ala Liverpool.
I think it would cope as there's enough quality there but make no mistake I don't want to go into the season with this only and if we only made two signings we'd still run into issues.Honestly that 11 makes me feel a bit sick. It's so stale.
Easy:
Lloris
RB Sanchez Vertonghen Rose
Dier
Lo Celso NDombele
Son Kane Bale
Gazzaniga, Aurier/KWP, Foyth, Winks, Sissoko, Lucas, Sessegnon
Davies, Lamela, Wanyama
If Dier is in the first 11 on paper after this summers transfer window patrolling midfield then we've done something wrong.Easy:
Lloris
RB Sanchez Vertonghen Rose
Dier
Lo Celso NDombele
Son Kane Bale
Gazzaniga, Aurier/KWP, Foyth, Winks, Sissoko, Lucas, Sessegnon
Davies, Lamela, Wanyama
I think now the dust has settled, I think there's a few things we need to improve on.
Poch is an outstanding manager however if we're going to take that final step then he needs to be willing to change two things which are basically one thing.
- Needs to drop players from starting 11 if they're going through a bad run, Eriksen and Dele spent far too long in starting 11 this season despite struggling for form even when there were other options
- This is the big one for me, but he needs to not be scared to sub off his favourites, not only was it criminal that Liverpool made 2 subs before we made one but to take Winks off instead of Dele, Eriksen or Kane was a terrible decision. It's not the first time either, he regularly sacrifices balance and takes off the perceived lesser players to favour leaving on his favourites who are not peforming.
I think we need to remove the single player dependency on our passing game, you can't have a situation where your fluidity all hinges on whether Eriksen has a good game or not.
I also think we need to not base our game around Kane as our main attacking outlet, he's an incredible footballer but you look at Liverpool, City, Barca and when Ronaldo was at Madrid, the key players are in those wing positions where they have space, Kane has incredible ability to hold the ball up and pass, I know he's a freak at scoring but I think if we adapt our style to favour our wing players, Kane will still be a scoring phenomenon but will have so much more influence on the game with his all round play. He can be a large part of the solution for fixing our Eriksen shaped hole along with improving the passing ability by signing great midfielders.
Agree with this but I think the bolded part is due to our lack of quality in depth. Both Eriksen and Dele can be match winners, so if they are going to be dropped, we need better quality to replace them with. If these guys knew that a few bad games would see them dropped for the likes of this Argeninian CM that people are raving about (Lo Celso?), or Ndombele or another QUALITY player, their game form would improve imo.
My main hope is that we can get in some real competition for places with quality that will push the likes of Dele to another level. Remember the season Lennon had when we got Bentley? He finally had real competition for his spot and stepped it up 2 or 3 notches, culminating in one of his best seasons for us. I know Bentley turned out to be a duffer (apart from THAT goal obviously) but still ,the effect of bringing him in was great for us as a team.