Pre-Season 2018/19

Were you watching the same game? Richarlison had their full-back all over the shop in the 45 mins he played!

I have a suspicion that Wilmot may be nearer the First-Team picture than a lot of us thought this season when it comes to looking at bringing in CB’s. And he openly stated he chose us over others because he can train with the First-Team and be given opportunities rather than U-23 games or going out on loan. But yes a new CB would be nice and would allow us to get rid of 2-3 fringe defenders. I can’t see it happening though.

Have to say, with Success and Penaranda in the fold, I really don’t see a striker coming in. In fact, I don’t see us doing any more major business.

 

Thought Wilmot looked really good on the ball in that game, but I worry at the moment he just isn't big enough to be a centre back in the premier league and will get bullied.

Looked better than Britos mind.

 

I fear you might be right. Trim the excess and go with what we have. The problem is that relies on:

- Success and Peneranda having an effective impact when they've not impressed for 2 years.
- Deeney and Gray having better seasons
- our aging CBS regaining form or staying fit compared to last season.

Too many risks. We'd be prime relegation candidates.

 

Success and Penaranda are likely to be depth options though even if we keep both. Richarlison, Deulofeu, Pereyra have all played well out wide and we just signed Ken.

Penaranda has also been sent on some really **** loans by us, it doesn't necessarily mean he is ****. Chalobah went through a similar period with his loans to Forest, Burnley and Boro and he turned out okay. Only last summer he was one of the best players at the u20 world cup.

Would love a new striker, but think Gray still deserves a proper chance. Don't think him being benched every time he had a good game and struggling to put together a string of games helped. Deeney has been fairly poor for 2 years now. Hard to imagine a sudden turnaround.

 

Personally I think the club will be looking to see off Penaranda has enough to help us this season - it’s time to take a look. If he isn’t quite as developed as hoped, he at least now had the ability to play in the country so a loan to a top-end Championship team isn’t out of the equation. Something that I really think Isaac Success could have done with last season.

On the subject of Success, this will be last chance saloon for him with us I think. He’s wasted the last 2 years and I suspect the club have told him this is no uncertain terms, hence his early pre-season work. But if he can get his head down and show real focus, I expect him to be in and around the first-team. He has all the makings of a striker too so a fit and firing Success would make me less aprehensive about our striking options.

 

Is size all that important though? He is tall enough and although he might not have the upper body mass of some other defenders, he will probably make up for it with pace. I see him being in an around the squad this year and possibly making some starts around Christmas.

 

Agreed. There are plenty of CB’s playing in the PL who aren’t exactly graced with amazing physical attributes. John Stones....

 

I think we're pretty much done too. Maybe Okaka out and a younger, quicker third choice in? Rodwell to sign in case Doucouré forces a late move?

 

If we go with what we have and just swap Doucoure to Rodwell, we are doomed !

 

But Gracia has consistently picked TD & Okaka ahead of Gray so I'm not sure he is planning on giving him a chance.

 

Gray started the last three games of last season. I think Deeney got an extended run after the goals against Everton and West Brom but Gracia could probably see he wasn't contributing anything towards the end of the season. If he's not even scoring penalties anymore, then his chances of staying in the team drop even lower.

 

Let’s not go overboard.

Masina has been bought to be first choice.
Foster has been bought to be first choice.
We don’t know about Wilmot but it’s a step in the right direction with the defence.
Deloufeu is a great signing.
Navarro is another defensive recruit.
Sema doesn’t seem required to me but I don’t know anything about him to be honest.

We haven’t bought a defensive midfielder yet so not sure how we are hoarding them. If we are hoarding anything, it’s CB’s. But we can all accept we need to buy a ready-made first-teamer and then let a couple of fringe ones go.

I really do suspect the bulk of our business is done save for maybe letting some fringe players go to make the squad manageable and swapping Okaka for someone of a similar profile.

What we need to remember is it’s easy for us to lament not bringing in bigger names in the positions we want. But it’s not our money to just write-off. Whether we like it or not, the club will have values for Gray/Okaka/Deeney and they won’t be prepared to budge from them hugely as they all have a market value that makes them assets to the club. Some of the defenders we can nearly write-off because their market values are low due to age. We can’t do that with the strikers. And that will affect who and what we can bring in. If the appropriate market isn’t there for the strikers we already have, we can forget about signing another one.

 

Yep. This is a world where Liverpool buy a good but not proven world class goalkeeper for 70 million. The fees asked out there must be crazy.

 

Exactly. An insane price for an okay keeper.

 

Read the last paragraph re. strikers.
And Navarro and Wilmot are young and can play CB. I agree that I'd like an established CB who isn't injury-prone - but it can't be said that we haven't paid any attention to the defence.

 

The new Britos contact was a statement of intent about how serious we are about improving the defence unfortunately. Next season two of Kaboul/Kabba/Cathcart will be injured and Marriapa/Prodl/Britos will be making their usual errors. We will scratch our heads and take solace that we'll upgrade in the following summer.

In my opinion the named 6 players are a relegation unit due to ability/age/injury proneness. It's poor that all we seemingly plan to do is bring in 2 prospects.

 

I mean, he's clearly far, far better than 'okay'.

 

I accept that you can't just go and sign a proven striker for peanuts. That said, pretty much every team in the Premier League and the higher reaches of the Champioship has a better striker than any of ours, so it's simply not a very good excuse, as we're not the richest club in the country, but we should have done better than Gray/Deeney/Okaka by now.

The other issue, our defence, is simply unforgivable if it isn't sorted out.

We've seen over two seasons that shipping goals is costing us points and league places, yet we're persisting with the same ageing, calamitous and slow central core? That's insanity. The price of centre backs is not out of kilter with the signings we've made, yet we've just decided not to target that area. Again.

OK, this is premature, because there are still weeks left of the window, but I'm talking in response to those who say our business is done. If it is, then our recruitment department need to have a long, hard look at themselves, because we deserve to be relegated if the window closes without strengthening centre back and centre forward. All the signings we've made are nice to haves, not essentials and if we don't get the essentials right, then the rest of it is a waste of time and money.

 

Spot on. Fingers crossed we are being premature on the major business being done. My worry is the process of shipping out our current excess, even on loans, will consume time unless we plan on dumping them on Udinese.

 

Or swapping them for their Pasta Guy striker?

 

Its more important that we get the replacements in than we find homes for our excess. We can always Djedje or Molla them !

 

Only so many though. Haven't we got 6/7 to rehome and that will increase if more new players arrive. Can't imagine morale would be too good with half a team of unregistered over 21s!!

 

Is this their striker, Anthony, who was good at sailing yachts. Rigger Toni.

 

Surely even our absurd medical team have rehabilitated his January season ending hamstring injury by now??

 

Also, most other leagues have their transfer deadlines a couple of weeks after the Premier League one finishes - so the priority should be getting the necessary players in before the PL window closes, and then worst case if we end up with too many in the squad we can still later ship some out to Europe.

 

I said he looked uninterested, not that he played poorly.
After seeing the media reports today, it may not be long before he waves goodbye.

 

Cleverly has had an achilles operation and will miss start of season according to SSN. Injuries starting all over again.

 

Sky have expanded and the good news is Cleverly "has been working with Watford's medical team over the summer".

 

That’s Cleverley done for the year then.

 

When was this operation then? And any date for his comeback? Might actually be smart not to announce anything given the ****ery that happened last season

 

If it’s long standing, why wasn’t it done when was injured?