Just imagine Spike Milligan in goal, his headstone would read, " I told them I wasn't a goal keeper "
Great! We can go back to pretending he's not a crap goalkeeper who consistently does a lot of the basics very poorly for a week or two until he inevitably puts on another shambolic display!
Name a goalkeeper better, that we could afford, and who would want to come here. We were spoilt with Almunia, Gomes and Foster. We still have an internationally capped goalkeeper, just one more in keeping with the status of our team.
I'd like us to sign Viktor Johansson from Rotherham, he's still very young for a keeper, homegrown, and he's been on a one-man crusade over the last 2 seasons to keep Rotherham up
With Huddersfield as good as down, they have a striker called Rhys Healey who we might take a look at. Tongue in cheek, but only mentioned because I don't think anyone else has... And looking at his stats, 5 championship goals in 636 mins isn't too shabby.
Tbf he's scored 3 goals for them in 438 league mins and 2 goals for us in 193 league mins. That puts him at 5 goals in 631 mins played, or a goal every 126 mins. Raj: Goal every 204 mins Bayo: Goal every 386 mins Dennis: Goal ever 233 mins That being said, getting Healey on the pitch is the problem, not his output!
There’s a guy called Rey Manaj who’s banging in goals for fun in Turkey. Might be worth a look. Shame he now has a 10m euro price tag to his name, was available for free 18 months ago.
We’ve got to stop dreaming of players who are clearly out of our price range. We clearly can’t afford the price of a proven striker like this guy. I believe he is ex Barcelona !
Assuming we go into next Season playing a type of 5-3-2: Green - Keep Blue - Loan Red - Sell / Return / Release Goalkeepers: Bachmann Hamer Right Wing Back: Andrews Ngakia Ferreira (On Loan) <New Player> Left Wing Back: Sema Lewis Morris <New Player> Centre Back: Hoedt Porteous SIerralta Pollock <New Player> Central Midfield: Livermore Dele-Bashiru Kayembé Koné Chakvetadze Louza (On Loan) Ince Asprilla <New Player> Strikers: Dennis Bayo Rajovic Martins Forde (On loan) Hurtado (On loan) Adeyemo Kalu (On loan) Fletcher (On loan, stay away) <New Player> <New Player> Most of my list is what you'd expect, with one or surprising exceptions. Goalkeepers: I think what we have is reasonable, if not great by any means for this level. Bachmann at this level and in a system that asks him to be a traditional than ball playing goalkeeper is fine and Hamer has shown himself to be a very good alternative if we want a ball playing keeper. No point spending major money in this department currently as it will be marginal gains at this level and with who we have. Defenders: For this level, our centre back are fine and the shape Cleverley is using illustrates this. I'd have released Ngakia were it an option, but as we don't I'd find a club next Season where he can try and demonstrate he has more than 5 games in him before he gets injured for 2 months. Sending back Lewis is no surprise, but selling Sema is. He's a good character, grafts, versatile and dependable. He's also starting to pick up muscular injuries which given his style of play is very bad news and will only get worse. I'd say let's end it on a high with him and get a good price before we lose the chance to. Central Midfield: Livermore has been dependable and always available. I'd say it's a no brainer with his experience and attitude to keep him another year. Dele-Bashiru has shown himself to be a press resistant holding midfielder and before his injury made that spot his since Cleverley's appointment. Kayembé plays like a budget Doucouré while Koné still needs to work out his consistency issues but we know he can play an excellent final ball. Chakvetadze has shown glimpses of high quality play and needs to develop more consistency which hopefully comes with him settling properly over the Summer. Ince is no surprise, while I will say that although Asprilla could do with another Season to work out his consistency, we need cash and if we can get £15m or more, we need to take that oppurtunity. Strikers: Dennis' loan spell has been less than we expected but he's working hard, does not seem to have any issues with the team and does know how to score goals. I'd certainly try and find a way to keep him if wages are reasonable which I understand they are. Selling Bayo does make me a little sad as there's a lot to like as with his work rate and good link up play at times but he's not shooting enough to be a striker whilst his composure has not improved. Rajovic I think has a place in this team, and a good rest and reset will see him look sharper this time. Martins has flattered to deceive, and I will not too sad when he returns to Udinese which is a bit of a shame as there is a player in there. Loans: Ferreira has had a respectable loan spell at Udinese but he's also a player I think suits Italian football more than English football so don't think we'll see him return. Louza I think does have a place next Season here if he wants to play under Cleverley and we aren't in a great position to turn our nose up at a player who has the talent he has if that's the case. Kalu is no surprise and there is a reason why Fletcher is in bold, red text. Forde has had a good loan spell and deserves a shot with the first team this year to show he can adapt to a higher level. Hurtado I think could have a place in next year's squad but I think he's better served adapting to the English game going on loan again to Gillingham. Adeyemo needs football and his injury last year keeping him out for the Season is a setback for him. A good loan spell playing is critical for his development than first team training. Summary: Based on this, I'd have a new CB, new RWB, new LWB, new CM and 2x ST to have sufficient depth for a 5-3-2. If 2022/23 was a squad that was bloated, lazy and expensive, 2023/24 has been a year where we've trimmed almost all the fat off and relied on a thin squad, harder working squad that tried but lacked quality up front. This time, we need to focus on quality additions in defined roles. We don't need to spend millions to do this either if we know exactly what we want to fill either but it requires our recruitment team to be on the ball and for Cleverley to know what type of player he wants so the board have no excuse to not invest into his vision. Finally, it's my old man Phelps' 14th birthday, so here's his birthday mugshot as I love him to bits.
It sure is - I very much doubt we'd get a good price for Sema considering his age and that he's in the last year of his contract. I can't imagine any offers would be anything more than token gesture nominal fees, in which case I'd rather just keep him (unless we can afford to bring in two genuinely quality players down the left, which would be a surprise).
Decent synopsis, I don't agree with everything you say, but overall I would not do much different to what you suggest.
I don’t understand why people think that «keeping» Dennis is even an option. The guy has a 50k per week contract and Forest will look to either sell or get as much of that as possible paid by a loaning club. Even the current 20k per week «put him in the shop window» loan deal would be out of our reach next season. Our strikers for 24/25 will be Bayo, Rajovic and whoever stays out of Forde, Hurtado and Doumbia. There’s also no way we can release Ince. He has one year left of his 30k per week contract. There’s a reason why we got him for virtually no transfer fee. Surely we’d rather keep him than pay a 1.5m compensation to let him go. The same can be said about Fletcher, although there might still be clubs who are stupid enough to pay us a fraction of his wages to take him on loan. Finally, I don’t think Clevs will play 3 at the back next season. It’s going to be some kind of 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1.
What are you basing that on? He even played 3 at the back at home against Sunderland with no suitable RWB.
I can remember one game this season we tried lining up a 4-3-3 with Cleverley but it didn't look good I think. Can't remember who against though.
Cleverley played 433 in his first match vs Birmingham (where they should have scored a couple), then later on in the game vs Southampton (where he stuck Porteous at RB and we conceded after 1 minute).
Well Andrews came on at half-time, perhaps that was the plan all along. He has yet to have a window to mould the squad in the way he would like tbf, so I don't think 3-5-2 is a dead cert
Perhaps, but Cleverley has observed and pointed out that we've been too open and poor defensively under him when playing 433 - and I struggle to see how our personnel may change in such a way over this summer window that will make us stronger defensively. If anything we may lose our best defender in Hoedt, and the young Colombian DM we've signed does not seem ready to make a huge impact immediately in shielding the defence, so if anything it could make playing with a back 4 seem even more risky to him. Relying on personnel changes therefore seems unlikely to be sufficient on its own; Clevs would also have to coach a different approach to playing the system as he has already attempted with us.
The ongoing talks for Dennis (which are a thing) are for less than 20k a week. And Ince is not on 30k a week. (I’m not saying the above to catch you out - but it’s fair to put the truth out there in the face of what people have heard.)
There’s not a lot from what we have seen so far to date to base it on - but it’s widely known within the clubs corridors that what we have seen under Cleverley in terms of style and personnel, isn’t what we will see next season. He wants a number of new players - and has only played this current style/shape as that’s what he felt was best given the tools at his disposal and the short term goal he was given.
TC said today Porteous is being left out on Saturday partly because he's on 14 yellows and would pick up a ban for next season with a 15th so that's one player he wants to be here.
I can understand that from the perspective of making us harder to beat would have played to the short-term goal of scraping up the few more points which would have guaranteed survival, but what I don't understand is given how terrible our defence looked the couple of times we played it with him, how he could make it look better with similar or perhaps even worse personnel after the summer (if we lose Hoedt I'd be very surprised if we could replace him with someone as good or better for). I can also understand it from the perspective of our current wingers being pretty crap overall or better suited to other positions (mainly Dennis and Asprilla liking to play more central and have less defensive responsibility). But again that doesn't really make much difference to what he's identified about us having been so open at the back. I'm all for going back to 433 if he can find a way to make it work though.
