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I think squad depth is a concern, despite the versatility of our players.
A couple of injuries to the wrong players and we will be struggling to adequately fill certain positions.
Compounded by the facts that Lavia and Sterling are gone/going, Phillips, Haaland, Alvarez and Ortega are new, Grealish has to prove himself, five youngsters with no experience, question marks re Bern and Ake staying and the number of games we are expected to play.

GK: covered Ed & Ortega
CB: covered provided Stones stays fit and Ake does not leave, Laporte, Dias
FB: not covered Walker, Cancelo and Zinchenko
DM: covered Rodri, Phillips
AM: covered De Bruyne, Gundo, Bern
Wide: not covered Foden, Grealish, Mahrez
CF: Haaland, Alvarez

Young players: Mbete, Wilson-Esbrand, Palmer, McAtee, Delap

At a minimum we urgently need a left back and a pacy wide player.

Any thoughts?

Agree on left back cover but it looks like that will be sorted soon - I personally think coke palmer has showed enough potential for a regular first team squad place

Wooders wrote:Agree on left back cover but it looks like that will be sorted soon - I personally think coke palmer has showed enough potential for a regular first team squad place

Palmer will fit in wide right and deserves game time providing he can stay fit. Cancelo is another option so we do have cover and don't necessarily have to go to market to replace. Left back will get sorted in the coming weeks. We do need CB cover if Ake goes so cannot imagine us agreeing to that unless he wants out

Another £10.5M in the kitty from the sale of Lavia to Southampton. Also includes another £3.5M in add ons and a 20% sell on clause

Reckon there will be at least one more signing

Wooders wrote:Agree on left back cover but it looks like that will be sorted soon - I personally think coke palmer has showed enough potential for a regular first team squad place

Do you know something we haven't considered?

I agree that we just need to get this left back business sorted now. I'm going to agree with Mase on the kids for once. I think they should be used to fill in more where we have need. Whilst they may not all have a long term future here, if they can't fill in, why in the squad? We've run with a small squad the last 3 or 4 seasons, despite all the stupid pundits 'MAN City have a huge squad.....'

Yes it is a concern. We had a lot of young players on the bench last season. We have sold enough players now, too much upheaval may cause some difficulties. Plus we have this ridiculous world cup slap bang in the middle of the season right at the wrong time. It could easily be argued that were going to need better strength in depth to deal with the fallout and after affects from that. We have a lot of players who will get a grilling at the world cup, Kevin, Bernie etc. They will play every game in the desert and come back in bits. It has the potential to have a very negative affect on the second half of the season. Most certainly we will have some players coming back from it with injury. It really will be the tale of two seasons in one, so we better get off to a good start.

I would like to see another wide player coming although there doesn't seem to be much urgency on that front. It probably wont happen.
We have needed a left back for 5 years and hopefully that will be sorted soon. If Ake goes we will need someone. JS will be missing parts of the season again (apart from the World Cup) and we definitely need an Ake replacement if he were to leave. I hope he doesn't go. Letting him go without a replacement would be shocking management and an act of gross negligence.

We only had 17 outfield players last season and we struggled with injuries but got away with it .

The likes of palmer need to play this coming season and not just to warm the bench .

If we get a LB then we will be sorted .

Assuming sterling goes and ake stays we generally need two players for every position. Right now we lack a left back but I expect cucarella to sign so it gives us:

Ederson(stefan)

Walker-Stones-Laporte-Cucarella
Cancelo-Dias-Ake-Zinchenko

Rodri/Phillips

Kdb(gundo) Bernie(X, foden could do this role)

Mahrez(Palmer) Haaland(Alvarez) Grealish(Foden)

I think we are short either an attacking centre mid which would allow foden occupy one of the wide positions or a wide attacker should foden cover the central areas.

The option is to add McAtee but it means we have palmer mcatee and alvarez all unproven in our squad and that for me is a huge risk. But if there good enough there good enough. I think we wont have any room for error next season with the dippers. I expect them to get 95plus points so we need to start strong.

Dubciteh wrote:Assuming sterling goes and ake stays we generally need two players for every position. Right now we lack a left back but I expect cucarella to sign so it gives us:

Ederson(stefan)

Walker-Stones-Laporte-Cucarella
Cancelo-Dias-Ake-Zinchenko

Rodri/Phillips

Kdb(gundo) Bernie(X, foden could do this role)

Mahrez(Palmer) Haaland(Alvarez) Grealish(Foden)

I think we are short either an attacking centre mid which would allow foden occupy one of the wide positions or a wide attacker should foden cover the central areas.

The option is to add McAtee but it means we have palmer mcatee and alvarez all unproven in our squad and that for me is a huge risk. But if there good enough there good enough. I think we wont have any room for error next season with the dippers. I expect them to get 95plus points so we need to start strong.

Dippers will not get 95 points imo.
Their front five are overrated. Nunez is unknown, Diaz has only played a handful of games, Jota is not top class, etc... and VVD is on the way down.

Im torn as i want palmer to play more, but these tiny squads are risky as fuck and always lead to us throwing the fa cup and injuries / tiredness in the second half of the season.

no
18 top class international players is more than enough
also, 5 subs will allow us to rest players when we’re 11-0 up

Nigels Tackle wrote:no
18 top class international players is more than enough
also, 5 subs will allow us to rest players when we’re 11-0 up

Let’s hope pep actually uses the young players on the bench this season.

carl_feedthegoat wrote:

Nigels Tackle wrote:no
18 top class international players is more than enough
also, 5 subs will allow us to rest players when we’re 11-0 up

Let’s hope pep actually uses the young players on the bench this season.

We won the league because of the 3 experienced subs he put on against Villa.
Like Nige said we can put the kids on when we're winning comfortably but we won the league by 1 point- there was no margin for error.

stupot wrote:

carl_feedthegoat wrote:

Nigels Tackle wrote:no
18 top class international players is more than enough
also, 5 subs will allow us to rest players when we’re 11-0 up

Let’s hope pep actually uses the young players on the bench this season.

We won the league because of the 3 experienced subs he put on against Villa.
Like Nige said we can put the kids on when we're winning comfortably but we won the league by 1 point- there was no margin for error.

There were many games last season when we were winning by a couple of goals or more - and he still didn’t play them.

Time to change that approach this season or we will end up losing players like palmer and Macatee next season .

If Pep uses his subs right then we shouldn’t have all the injuries towards the end of the season. The 5 subs rule will help us.

Nigels Tackle wrote:no
18 top class international players is more than enough
also, 5 subs will allow us to rest players when we’re 11-0 up

Disagree with this assessment - the squad should have 3 club trained top prospects alongside Foden (currently only Palmer is ready but hopefully Callum Doyle will also be included) plus 21 other high class players enabling genuine competition for every place. If Zinch, Ake & Sterling leave as expected in addition to Jesus there will be an urgent need to recruit at least three world class replacements. We would then be short of two left backs, a centre back, a wide attacker and a midfielder.