Final pieces of the jigsaw

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billycopper

Player Valuation: £40m
Overall I'm happy not just with the first team, but our squad. With any luck we'll have a little money available over the summer to strengthen.

I don't know a lot about Mucha. Hopefully he'll provide serious backup to Howard. In which case you'd expect Nash to be released. I can also see Ruddy being allowed to join Motherwell permanently to free up some funds.

Distin has improved over the last few games, but I think he was only brought in as emergency cover. His age counts against him. I would expect him to be sold while he still has some resale value and for Senderos to be signed on a free as a replacement.

I would also expect Jutkiewicz to be allowed to leave the club.

As for incoming transfers, left back is where we are in most urgent need of cover. I would like to see Charles N'Zogbia signed from Wigan, as he can deputise for either Baines or Bily. Joe Ledley from Cardiff can also operate in both positions and is available on a free in the summer. He might be a more likely target.

I'd also like to see a striker brought in who could partner Saha and take some of the goal-scoring burden off him. That might mean allowing either Anichebe or Vaughan to spend time out on loan.

At this stage it's simply a question of tinkering with the balance of the squad for Moyes and trying to unearth the 'magic' player who everything can revolve around. We may already have that player, if either Arteta or Pienaar settle there.

The rules change next season and all clubs will only be able to use a 25 man squad. Ours would look pretty healthy :D

1.Howard 2.Neville 3.Baines 4.Jagielka 5.Heitinga 6.Fellaini 7.Arteta
8.Osman 9.Cahill 10.Saha 11.Pienaar 12.Mucha 13.Hibbert 14.Yobo
15.Senderos 16.Ledley 17.Bily 18.Rodwell 19.Gosling 20.Coleman
21.Yakubu 22.Vaughan 23.Anichebe 24.Baxter 25.Turner
 

TBH I wouldnt let anyone go apart from Nash and Jutkiewicz, add Ledley (assuming there isnt a bidding war for his services that drives his wage demands up) and Beckford (if those rumours earlier were true, though his form has dipped alarmingly) and our priorities this summer should be making sure Pienaar signs a new deal, and getting Donovan in permanently, in that order.
 
Yeah, I can see the Yak being on his way too. He can't be happy being on the bench more often that not and he hasn't looked especially dangerous when he has been introduced. He's one of our most saleable assets. If he's not going to feature regularly, then we could reinvest the cash in a player or two who will challenge for a starting berth.

Beckford is a good shout.

Given that we're going to be limited in the number of players that we can use next season, having five centrebacks is excessive and would upset the balance of the squad. It wouldn't harm our budget to cut Distin from the wage bill.

I can see Donovan regularly joining us on loan, as Beckham does with Milan. It seems unlikely that we'll be able to sign him permanently.
 
We have apparently signed Jermaine Beckford from Leeds.

I hoped for the following:

Striker ( Beckford )
2nd Keeper ( Mucha )
2nd Left Back
Central defender ( We'll see about Senderos )
Winger

We're close (y)
 

We need to give Baines a rest now and then, and we can't.
He has the World Cup on his mind too, and one lapse of concentration and he could get injured.
 
If, as expected, we're in the market for free transfers over the summer, Rangers' Kris Boyd is out of contract. He's only 26 years old (the same as Beckford) and has scored 21 goals in 19 starts this season. Alex McLeish at Birmingham is a long time admirer. The player's attitude is reported to be suspect. That does remind me of another Scottish firebrand that we signed from Ibrox. :P
 
Duncan was the last great player Scotland produced.

I was thinking the other day tho, theres not many "talented" Scottish players around these days. Bit strange considering how many there used to be knocking about.
 
get rid of hibbert and promote colman
get rid of vaughan bring in beckford
get rid of yobo bring in senderos
money in the bank for a winger
 

In the eighties and early part of the nineties most of the great teams had a Scot, a Welshman and an Irishman.

Everton
Scot: Gray
Welsh: Southall, Van den Hauwe, Ratcliffe
Irish: Sheedy

Liverpool
Scot: Hansen, Nicol, Dalglish
Welsh: Rush
Irish: Houghton, Beglin, Staunton

United
Scot: Leighton, McCLair
Welsh: Hughes, Giggs
Irish: Irwin, Keane

There's something that appeals to me about having players from each of the home nations. I've thought of it as being lucky. We're a particularly Celtic club anyway.

If we brought Joe Ledley and Kris Boyd in on bosmans, we'd have:

Scot: Boyd
Welsh: Ledley
Irish: Coleman, Duffy
 
Have we deffinatly signed Beckford? would be surprised, didn't think he would get in front of Anichebe or Vaughan.

Could end up like Delph at Villa they were 5-1 up today and he still didn't get a look in, thats a lot of money (£8m?) to have Steve Sidwell come on before you, unless of course he's injured.

I think going into the summer transfer window this year will be the first time that i'm not that worried about us breaking our transfer record on a big player. I can't even see where the priority player is needed now.

If Pienaars deal is sorted and Donovan can be had on a loan or possibly be our transfer budget, that would be a good start. I know a lot of people would like to see an attacking right back but I don't think Neville will be dropped for anybody. Obviously keeping Rodwell and the rest of the squad should be a priority.

Looking forward to the end of this season and the start of next because with a fully fit, rested squad we can be a match for anybody. I think the tide is slowly turning on our neighbours if we keep the belief and they keep Rafael we will be rubbing very close shoulders with teams around 4th on a regular basis.
 
A new contract for Pienaar and the permanent signing of Landon Donovan are top of my wish list for the summer, more than any new signing.

Mucha sounds like he'll provide proper competition for Howard, which he's never had with us.

I expect us to sign Senderos on a bosman, though possibly only on a one year deal or something like that. He could turn out to be a shrewd acquisition.

A proper understudy for Baines would be nice, and I think it's something Moyes is interested in addressing after he took a look at that Rindaroy lad in January. We're not as badly covered there as it first appears though - Bilyaletdinov, Distin and Neville can all do a job there and Garbutt and Bidwell are both England youth internationals in that position (though we're probably still about two years away from seeing either of them seriously trouble the first team places).

If that weird statement from Simon Grayson turns out to have been true then Beckford would be a nice bonus. We don't particularly need another centre forward but he'd be a useful option to have for little outlay.

On top of the above 'house-keeping' signings rounding out/maintaining the squad it'd be nice if we had a bit of money to add one exciting player who we'd expect to become a fixture in our first eleven pretty quickly. I'm not sure where in our starting line-up that would be but it'd be great to pick up an international-class right back who offers us a new attacking outlet to compete with the incoming Coleman and outgoing Neville (who's playing career will begin to wind down next season I suspect). Hibbert would still be there to provide cover too. If Donovan ends up costing the reported £7m-£10m though we'd surely have to sell someone in order to fund any further meaningful acquisitions. We could be better off just keeping everyone together and trusting that Coleman (or Gosling?) will grow into the attacking right back our team currently lacks.

We seem to be well set up going into the summer, hopefully the club can do their best to ensure us a relatively stress-free pre-season (it would make a nice change).
 

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