Time to start rebuilding now!

[Dutch McLovin]

Serious question is what we will do with Reach ??

[striker]

Think the rebuilding job will have been going on in  the background since he day Bruce walked in the building. 

 

Players out of contract helps re FFP, expect us to use our full allocation of loans and any purchases funded by player sales. 

 

Wouldn't be surprised if we go for Hector, Aarons and Lazaar on permanent deals if the money is right, none of which would realistically command a huge fee, certainly not the Newcastle lads who they seem keen to move on. 

Edited April 14, 2019 by striker

[gurujuan]

7 minutes ago, mkowl said:

There is a vogue for 4 1 4 1 formations and Hutch would most definitely be the 1 in front of the defence. 

 

 

There is yes, and that might be the way forward Suits most of our existing better players, and probably means less recruitment 

One worry might be, the wide players in the middle four would need to offer more goals than Aarons and Reach are likely to provide Whatever system we go for, we cannot possibly have Fletcher leading the line.

[Sheffwed94]

Top priority has to be Westwood and Hector, top professionals and compliment Lees its a win win 

Give Palmer a new deal as I think he’s proven himself even when playing left back. 

Rest of the out of contracts can go to get rid of wages.

Tempted to take Lee back but that would be if he’d accept a 1 year pay as you play type deal, think that would be worth the risk. 

Hopper has clear class but his wages will be ridiculous and given his injury record for us don’t think it’s a risk worth paying for.  

Moving forward, I’d like to see us switch to a 4-3-3 or the type, think it would allow bannan more time and space to create and still allow us to be direct when needed.  

Sign a pacey, Aarons type winger permanent or loan doesn’t matter. 

Same for left back Lazaar looked good when he was in and wouldn’t be disappointed if we got him next year. 

With ffp being an issue, and if nobody comes in to sign our players, it could be an issue but I think we could do something next year with that. The form we’ve been on under Bruce has pretty much shown that it would be possible and wouldn’t break the bank. 

 

Side note, I’d like to see us sign a back up keeper, somebody good enough to deputise for Westwood if he gets injured but not expensive, just to see Dawson and wild smith go out on loan and get experience, so get their wages off for a season and use it on a back up. Wouldn’t impact ffp at all if it was like that and we’d get our 2 youngsters getting match experience win/win. 

 

Forestieri - Fletcher - new winger

 

bannan - Hutchinson - reach/Lee

 

new left back - hector - Lees - Iorfa/Palmer 

 

westwood

 

Bench- 

 

Nuhiu, winnall, joao, reach/lee , Palmer/Iorfa, thorniley, new back up keeper

 

 

 

 

[gurujuan]

3 minutes ago, Sheffwed94 said:

Top priority has to be Westwood and Hector, top professionals and compliment Lees its a win win 

Give Palmer a new deal as I think he’s proven himself even when playing left back. 

Rest of the out of contracts can go to get rid of wages.

Tempted to take Lee back but that would be if he’d accept a 1 year pay as you play type deal, think that would be worth the risk. 

Hopper has clear class but his wages will be ridiculous and given his injury record for us don’t think it’s a risk worth paying for.  

Moving forward, I’d like to see us switch to a 4-3-3 or the type, think it would allow bannan more time and space to create and still allow us to be direct when needed.  

Sign a pacey, Aarons type winger permanent or loan doesn’t matter. 

Same for left back Lazaar looked good when he was in and wouldn’t be disappointed if we got him next year. 

With ffp being an issue, and if nobody comes in to sign our players, it could be an issue but I think we could do something next year with that. The form we’ve been on under Bruce has pretty much shown that it would be possible and wouldn’t break the bank. 

 

Side note, I’d like to see us sign a back up keeper, somebody good enough to deputise for Westwood if he gets injured but not expensive, just to see Dawson and wild smith go out on loan and get experience, so get their wages off for a season and use it on a back up. Wouldn’t impact ffp at all if it was like that and we’d get our 2 youngsters getting match experience win/win. 

 

Forestieri - Fletcher - new winger

 

bannan - Hutchinson - reach/Lee

 

new left back - hector - Lees - Iorfa/Palmer 

 

westwood

 

Bench- 

 

Nuhiu, winnall, joao, reach/lee , Palmer/Iorfa, thorniley, new back up keeper

 

 

 

 

Don’t mind the shape, but there wouldn’t be many goals in that side. Only Forestieri is capable of scoring 20 goals, but I’m not sure he likes playing with Fletcher. Aarons seems to be a 5 goal a season man

[Earlsfieldowl]

9 hours ago, Belfast Owl 2 said:

 

Have you watched him recently?

 

He has shown his class and what we have been missing.

 

You keep with your boring tired sniping and others will support our team

 

But he has hardly played in a season and a half.

 

I have said it many times - players that are only fit for 15-25 games a season won’t get us up.

 

 

[handworth52]

11 hours ago, gurujuan said:

Big issues to sort out One of the biggest is what do we do with Bannan? A fine little player, but far too lightweight to play in a two

if villa want him id snap there hands off for 5 million ,too lightweight , pretty appalling dead ball specialist ,cant cross from a corner ,and averages 1 goal a season from central midfield ,we have won a few games this season without him .I know a lot wont agree but I think he is 1 of the most overrated Wednesday players ever. 

[Jim]

I've posted in the past that I expect Westwood, Palmer and Boyd to be offered new deals. This may or may not prove to be the case now?

 

Bruce has decisions in particular to make over the futures of Hooper and Lee. It would be a gamble to keep either/both for obvious reasons.

 

I would expect some players who are under contract to be shipped out but this can only happen if there's interest from elsewhere. I do however think there would be interest in Reach, Bannan, Fletcher and Winnall.

 

Some tough decisions have to be made but Bruce's track record shows that he will make them if he has to.

 

I've said before that the balance in midfield is our problem and I stand by that. Defensively for the best part of the last 5 years we've been strong but we don't score enough goals for the supposed quality of forwards that we possess. We've been relying too heavily on Forestieri when fit to provide the creative spark and goals and obviously this has proved a problem recently with him being off the pace at the moment.

 

I think new full-backs and new wide players are a necessity. We may already have the solution at right-back in Iorfa but I wouldn't be surprised to see him partner Lees in centre-defence next season.

 

A lot for Bruce to sort out in the summer, transfer embargo permitting?

[Mr. Tom]

The one positive aspect of missing the playoffs will be not having to wait until everyone else has had a month in the transfer market ahead of us.

Over three of the past four campaigns, that's really hamstrung us in terms of gradual building IMO - even when the squad we had was firing on all cylinders.

We had to rush things through at odd times, paying over the odds for players nobody else was really pursuing any more. Our deals always seemed to get finalised at 23:59:59 almost every time, as if we were constantly doing some mad 'sunk cost fallacy'-type last-second eBay bidding and getting taken to the cleaners just to have signed *someone*.

 

Having a full window didn't help us much last season, of course, but we had that weird berk in charge over the summer.

 

Not saying it'll necessarily help us THAT much this year either, with our finances still in question, and obviously we've got to have a big clearout before we can really do anything especially positive, so we'll still not be first out of the traps. But Bruce is very clearly a 'football man' through and through (dumb phrase, but you know what I mean), and he'll be on it already in my view.

 

With our tricky financial balance AND so many out of contract/needing moved on, it'd be especially tricky for us to be competitive this year if, say, we had to battle all the way through the playoffs and stumble right at the end again. Would be a disaster, in fact. We really do NEED a full, clear run at both windows this season, if we're going to get in decent shape for a proper go next year.

[handworth52]

agree its now all about rebuilding ,id now only start players who bruce wants for next season or try players out who he needs to still make his mind up on if he wants them to stay.  id involve joao more now and maybe give winnall a couple of games as we cant judge him unless he plays if he comes up short then he can go too , I think just about every player could leave this summer I don't think anyones safe apart from lees ,Hutchinson maybe fletcher as there wont be any takers on his 35k a wk. id like hector to sign but I doubt Chelsea will loan him out now they have been told to stop loaning out 60 plus players , i think he will get sold for 3-4 million which sadly is out for us . 

[fpowl]

I think a massive overhaul is required

Like have been said we need to bring in athletic quick players to complement our existing bunch particularly wide and up top

 

retain

hooper

palmer

westwood

lee? 50-50 I think he will go but I suspect if Bruce see hi can be fit he’s cheap enough 

 

transfer list

Rhodes

winnal

forestieri

joao

fox 

Van aken

Pelupessy

 

Release 

abdi

jones

pudil

matias

boyd 

 

try and re- sign

lazaar

aarons

hector

 

sign

1x cb

2x wingers

2x Cm

2x cf

 

give us a first team squad of

 

GK

westwood

dawson

wildsmith

 

LB

lazzar

Penny

 

CB

hector

thorniley

lees

NEW 

 

RB

iorfa

palmer

 

Wingers

aarons

Reach

NEW pace

NEW pace

 

CM

hutchinson

bannan

Lee/ NEW

NEW box to box 

NEW enforcer 

 

CF

fletcher

hooper 

big dave 

NEW pace required 

NEW pace required

 

Its all iffs and butts and I would pretty much guarantee it won’t end up like this mainly because we won’t be able to offload some I’ve put on the transfer list but we should be moving in this direction it might take a few transfer windows too

 

that’s the magic number of 25 in the main squad 

[Plonk]

5 hours ago, james o connor said:

It’s not sniping , it’s an opinion . I have watched him yes . He’s still tidy on the ball , but is too slow and immobile to effect games against the big teams , which is why we fall short . One or two of the old lot are fine but they need mixing in with younger , more mobile faster players if we are to be top 6 . As hooper is out of contract and has an awful injury record , he should be one to make way . 

 

Just because i dont live in 2015 when hooper , lee and forestieri (another who needs to go) were bossing it , doesn’t mean I’m not a fan . Thinking a player should be released also doesn’t make me a ‘bad fan’ or whatever rubbish you were spouting . Sorry my opinion differs to yours . 

And yet you refer to people as bell ends for having a different opinion to you on fox?

[gurujuan]

Not sure about re-signing any of the loan players, other than Hector of course. The other three seem to have missed more games than they have played Any loan players we bring in, simply have to be good enough to start

[Buxtongent]

12 hours ago, S72 Owl said:

Now is the time to start rebuilding the team ready to hit the ground running next season. Im confident Bruce can get us in good shape ready for the first game. Last few years our season hasn’t started until September.

 

Hopefully DC can sort something out to avoid an embargo and give Bruce an hand. I reckon we’re going to need about 8 new signings to transform and freshen this squad up.

 

One thing we must do now is get Westwood signed up. The best keeper in the league.

 

I would fully agree with you, S72 Owl, that now is the time to start rebuilding. Unfortunately, this is where the idea of Transfer Windows lets one  down. .I am sure that, after 3 months in charge, Bruce has already, in his own mind, decided how he wants the team to perform, and if so, whicch players he wants to keep, which to move on, and who he wants to bring in, given all the various restraints placed on the club.Because there is no obvious movement doesn't mean there aren't moves being made behind the scenes.

As for yesterday, we were playing the team second in the league, on their own turf, and were the positions reversed, we would expect to win, and dominate the game.

I cannot help feeling that the playing of Bannan yesterday was a glaring mistake. He has been suffering from injury all week , was not fit, and should not have been considered.

One thing annoyed me intensely while watching Final Score was the recurring reference to the Blades hoping their neighbours would 'do them a favour'. Over the last few years, games where a United win would have helped us, they seem to have lost. No team should rely on another.  

[deano]

It should an interesting summer that's for sure. 

[Birley Owl 1867]

10 hours ago, Lord Snooty said:

 

If they're decent physical specimens,  with energy, endeavour,  stamina, pace and half a brain to carry out instructions. ..as long as they fit a proper thought out transfer policy in line with an on pitch system and plan...

 

... I'm not bothered what league they come from  or even if I've heard of them to be honest.

Risks with our financial situation wouldn't be wise though.

 

I'm sure Bruce will understand that.

[darra]

As it stands Rhodes will be a Norwich player next season.

[Shetland Owl]

Bruce has already hinted that you don't have to spends loads of money to be successful. We will still have problems spending any money if we cannot off load players for good fees

Keep Westwood, Palmer and possibly Lee if he can prove his fitness

Sell : FF, Winnall, Dave, Joey, JVA, Fletcher, Joao, Rhodes if anyone will have him

Out of contract players : release rest

 

Out of loan players try and get Hector

We don't need any other CB if we get him, have Thorniley and Iofra as cover

need

LB, CM, Winger and forwards with pace

[Lord Snooty]

5 minutes ago, Birley Owl 1867 said:

Risks with our financial situation wouldn't be wise though.

 

 

Which is why I think we might shop lower down. Lower wages and fees.

The biggest risks we've taken in recent years have been the more proven players who've bombed here. Rhodes, Boyd, Jones,  Abdi. 

 

Our best all round midfield player remains Kieran Lee who cost sod all and came from the 3rd division. 

 

[Birley Owl 1867]

1 minute ago, Lord Snooty said:

 

Which is why I think we might shop lower down. Lower wages and fees.

The biggest risks we've taken in recent years have been the more proven players who've bombed here. Rhodes, Boyd, Jones,  Abdi. 

 

Our best all round midfield player remains Kieran Lee who cost sod all and came from the 3rd division. 

 

But they could easily fail when the championship is too big a step up for them.

 

I'm not sure but how many lower league signings does Bruce usually make?