Are we stronger now than when we finished the season?

[blue1948]

We are a lot better as a whole ,yes there is no replacing Gana but no other team had him and they managed ,some better than us .I hope we start well as that is the key to a relatively new team and I have the the highest hopes knowing that Brands has the helm.

 

[Tin-Tin]

Squad? Maybe
First team? No

 

[TheBigIguana]

The one thing we desperately needed to improve was our goal scoring. We've decided to sign a striker and hope all the problems we had creating chances will magically be solved. I just don't see that happening. We needed to sign a winger and it appears we have failed there. And on top of that the one player we had that looked likely to take the next step and become a consistent creative threat we sold. That's disappointing.

 

[diggerdestroyer]

Its possible we will be better.Adding kean willdefo give us a better chance of a forward scoring , makes us better in attack. Hopefully mina can fill in for zouma. Difficult but possible. And gb can fill in ganas role in a different way. We mught need the likes of walcott and aome one like tosun to actually do something as well which numbs me a bit.

 

[ihcakoma]

we possinly are stronger if a 19 year old uproven striker is as good as we hope he might be. if hes not we are weaker after losing gana

 

[buededw1]

I honestly don't know the answer to this. I think if you sign a class centre half and a player of Zaha quality your looking at a totally different season ahead. With what we got, I think we will finish in the same place we did last year. Some of the teams around us have strengthened well.

 

[sageyefc]

First team maybe, squad no.


We're an injury away from a defensive crisis, an injury away from miralles or bolasie on the wing and an injury away from bambi Lewin leading the line

 

[Bkk Andy]

The lack of centre half options is disastrous. We really should have held onto Pennington when we saw things had gone South with Rojo - though I didn't want him either

 

[KaiserEFC]

We don’t know until we’ve played a few games.

 

[Barnfred 55]

Yes for the starting XI.

Not sure squad wise. Depends on how well Gbamin settles and Sidibe's fitness. But at worst I would say we are about the same squad wise.

But just adding Kean to our starting XI gives us the goals we were missing last season.

Later Edit

Having signed Iwobi, hopefully, I also think our squad is better too.

 

[JimmyK]

I'd say no. I don't know if we're weaker, but I don't see how we're stronger.

The only argument for being stronger seems to hinge on Kean being the answer up front. It's asking a lot of a 19 year old to come over to a new league and tear it up, but I appreciate that he looks like a very talented lad. I think (and really hope) that he'll offer more goal threat than Calvert Lewin, but we may lose out a little on the nuisance/target man side too. Nonetheless, we'll call that strengthening.

Then it gets a bit trickier, and this where the strengthening argument falls down for me. None of us have really seen a lot of Kean if we're honest. everyone is saying he'll be a massive improvement simply because of his reputation. If we accept that though, we have to also judge Gbamin on his reputation, which is significantly worse than Gana's. The people who say that Gbamin MIGHT be an improvement on Gana also want to say Kean WILL be an improvement on Calvert Lewin. Doesn't work like that sorry. Either they're both mights or ones a plus and the other's a minus.

The centre half situation is dire in my opinion. I think the first choice partnership is weaker than last season, and the back up almost non existent. I hope there's a freebie that we're thinking we can pull out of the bag after the deadline, because if anything happens to Keane I think it's a massive, massive, problem.

It's not all bad though, the squad depth is better in some areas I think, keeper and right back, and I think Delph is a good signing. All in all, we're about the same as we were I reckon. Roll on 8th, and all the people who say we've done so well in the window wanting the manager sacked when he has to play Gbamin and Gibson at centre half away at City and we get beat.

 

[everton1953]

Defo stronger. Well done Brands. Not perfect but who could be?

 

[bag a yoko]

The risks of loaning players is instability. Signing Gomes on a perm is huge. Gbamin is a CB so we have 3 decent players there. Another would have been nice but we have proper cover at right back.
Kean shouldn't be expected to perform for a while but is a thrilling prospect.
Iwobi I have no idea.
I would say probably yes. But this year we own our key players.

 

[gianthogweed]

Got a good squad could of should of get a center half but Gbamin can play center half if needed

 

[Carlito]

Better up top, worse at the back and about the same in the middle.