The ups and downs of this squad.

Bruce said:
Once it became clear that we were replacing our prestige loans plus Chuba with relatively low cost prospects the chances of making the play-offs this season became very slim. It is the classic taking 1 step back so that (hopefully) we can take 2 steps forward into the promised land. That said, we were still one of the highest spending teams this summer so Carrick does have access to a squad that looks like it is strong enough for somewhere between 6th-10th. The injury crisis though is ludicrous.

If you break down our main players by current level this season and potential level next season then I reckon you get something like

Premier > Premier: Hackney, O'Brien
Top Championship > Champ/Premier: Dieng, McGree?
Top Championship > stay the same or minor improvement/decline: Fry, Lenihan, Clarke, Forss, McNair
Mid Championship > could improve: Lath, Greenwood, Jones, Coburn, RVDB, Engel
Mid Championship > stay the same or get worse: Howson, Barlaser, Dijksteel, Crooks, Smith
Lower championship > could improve: Rogers, Silvera, Bangura,

Unknown: Gilbert, Nkrumah etc

Basically, given a whole season there's a fair number of our squad who could improve significantly. Without massive investment in January I don't see the squad presently being good enough to make the play-offs due to the stupid number of injuries we've had so the focus has to be on improving what we already have as far as possible.
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Nonsense

Hackney is not ready for the premier league
O'Brien was loaned out from a newly promoted premier league club
Dieng & McGree could play in the prem
Fry, Lenihan, Clarke, Forss, McNair all top championship when fit without question.
Lath, Greenwood, Jones, Coburn, RVDB, Engel are all top championship with premier league potential.
Howson, Barlaser, Dijksteel, Crooks, Smith.. all solid top performers at the top of the championship
Rogers, Silvera, Bangura.. young players with top division careers ahead of them
Gilbert, Nkrumah etc blah blah blah

We need to replace Cameron Archer and we need cover for Tommy Smith and Darragh Lenihan
3 cute loans would do it..
 
newyddion said:
Nonsense

Hackney is not ready for the premier league
O'Brien was loaned out from a newly promoted premier league club
Dieng & McGree could play in the prem
Fry, Lenihan, Clarke, Forss, McNair all top championship when fit without question.
Lath, Greenwood, Jones, Coburn, RVDB, Engel are all top championship with premier league potential.
Howson, Barlaser, Dijksteel, Crooks, Smith.. all solid top performers at the top of the championship
Rogers, Silvera, Bangura.. young players with top division careers ahead of them
Gilbert, Nkrumah etc blah blah blah

We need to replace Cameron Archer and we need cover for Tommy Smith and Darragh Lenihan
3 cute loans would do it..
Click to expand...
This is just madness.
Hackney is easily our best player. If he is not PL ready then absolutely none of our other players are.
There is one line of yours above that does you well.
“Blah blah blah”
 
As Luton and Ipswich have shown, you don't need a squad full of Premier league capable players to get promoted. It helps, obviously, but what you can do is have a team that is more than the sum of its parts made out of players who know how to win games in the Championship.

Last season we ended up with a squad that was fine-tuned for promotion or bust and failed with it.

This season we have a squad that's nowhere near that strength but also doesn't have the experience of playing together like Ipswich or Luton.

Probably premier league standard. Hackney, O'Brien
Maybe premier league. Dieng, McGree
Good Championship pros. Smith, Lenihan, Clarke, Fry, McNair
Average Championship pros. Crooks, Howson, Forss, Jones (inconsistency counts against him), Barlaser
Mediocre Championship/League one. Dijksteel, Coulson
Then a whole bunch of question marks.
Possibly good Championship players. RVDB, Greenwood, Latte Lath?
Who knows: Silvera, Rogers, Gilbert, Bangura, Engel, Glover, Coburn

Without all the injuries, I would say that the spine of our team looks on a par with the likes of Luton or Ipswich. Injuries have, however, ripped the spine out of our team. Most of our new signings have not yet convinced anyone that they are good enough for a top Championship team. Hopefully at least some of them will prove themselves but we're probably talking 12 months to get to the standard we need.
 
indeedido said:
This is just madness.
Hackney is easily our best player. If he is not PL ready then absolutely none of our other players are.
There is one line of yours above that does you well.
“Blah blah blah”
Click to expand...
He’s a quality player destined for the prem.. I don’t think he’s quite there yet. I think we will struggle if he was to leave in January say.
 
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