billycopper
Player Valuation: £40m
I think that Roberto could make a number of small changes this year.
- We're overloaded with defensive midfielders (McCarthy, Barry, Gibson, Besic, Cleverley, Barkley and possibly Ledson) but we're short of a left-sided centre back to deputise for Stones and Jagielka. Barry played there in the second half against Swindon and he has played there when we've had to reshuffle during Premier League games. It would make sense for Gareth to switch to the back, especially as he's looking a bit leggy for midfield these days. It would give Galloway and Browning another year to develop and save us having to look for a defender happy to play understudy.
- It seems likely that Barkley will switch to a deeper position in future. It might even mean that we could give Lukaku a partner and play 4-4-2. I think that Ross and the team will take a little bit of time to adapt to his new responsibilities.
- Roberto is on the look out for a playmaker. If he comes up short I'd like to see Pienaar operating in the hole. He has the vision and awareness to put his colleagues in on goal, whereas Barkley is more focussed on establishing his reputation and shooting from distance or dribbling through defenders himself.
- We've seen Mirallas switching flanks during matches but, if he was permanently positioned on the left (with Deulofeu on the right) he could cut inside on to his favoured foot at will, creating space for Baines on the overlap.
- I've always defended Naismith but our buildup play breaks down far too often because of him misplacing simple passes or not being on the same wavelength as his team mates. I think I'd probably abandon using him as a midfielder and have him as a joint-second choice striker with Kone. He's a good poacher and he wins more than his fair share of fouls. Being able to focus on goal-scoring might put some pressure on the rest of the attacking department to perform.
- I think that being without Pienaar, McGeady, Mirallas and Atsu for large parts of last season was one of the main contributing factors behind our inability to unlock stubborn defences. Our defensive midfield positions will be McCarthy plus one other, so the manager is going to need to find ways to give Cleverley, Barkley and Osman enough game time. They might find themselves playing in wider positions than we would ideally like or we could switch to 4-3-3. That would give Mirallas and Deulofeu greater freedom to linger up front and it could also give our fullbacks that extra license to get forward.
- If McAleny can stay fit and kick on he will be providing even more competition in midfield, which can't be a bad thing. The gaffer will want to give our youngsters regular game time and that could help us to manage Jagielka, Baines, Coleman, Pienaar, Osman etc so that they can be fresh and injury-free more often. In his first campaign Martinez was able to send players on to win games for us and I think we'll see that pattern repeated because of younger players swelling the size of our squad and putting pressure on the senior pros.
- McCarthy looked like being our player of the season last year until injuries took hold. It seems as if we've got to the bottom of his problems now and I think he'll be our driving force again next season. Stones will benefit from the experience he has had too and I expect him to be more formidable next season.
- Lukaku was drifting wide a lot last season because he wasn't seeing enough of the ball. Deulofeu will get into the final third at every opportunity and Romelu will just need to make sure that he's in the right place at the right time to profit.