The Squad 22/23

[Johnny75]

So from what I can gather, it's 23 registered and 3 U21s who don't have to be registered? (Based on my limited time on FM).

Meaning we only need 6 home grown players - Collins, Sarkic?, Kilman, Ronan. Who else?

It's 17 non-uk players over 21. There are only 14 in that picture.

Hwang, Gomes, Guedes, Sa, Raul, Nunes, Podence, Costa, Traore, Neves, Moutinho, Semedo and Jonny.

 

[The Bear]

IIRC it's anyone who was over 21 on 1st Jan 2022.

That includes Neto, Kalajdzic and Chiquinho too. That makes 17 though so I guess we were just on the limit.

 

[Law's Bus]

Yeah, we are right on the non-UK and Ireland limit; and Sarkic counts as home-grown.

Apparently though, we've registered Bonatini - presumably solely because we had a spare space so we might as well.

 

[Tony Towner]

IIRC it's anyone who was over 21 on 1st Jan 2022.

That includes Neto, Kalajdzic and Chiquinho too. That makes 17 though so I guess we were just on the limit.

It's only for the first half of the season, so if we have registered Kalajdzic and Chiquinho then we didn't need to

 

[prawnking]

The Squad for 2022-23:

Costa's manspreading

 

[MARKakaJIM]

Costa's manspreading

Neves getting absolutely bullied by Lage in the same situation too.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

--------------------------------Sa---------------------------------

Semedo-------------Collins--------Kilman/New CH-----RAN/Bueno

--------------------Neves-----------Nunes-----------------------

------------Sarabia-----------Cunha-------Podence/Neto-----

---------------------------Raul/New ST------------------------

Jonny, Toti, whichever LB, Moutinho, Lemina, Bouba (in a month or so), one of Podence/Neto, Adama, Hwang and Costa options off the bench. Maybe Gomes, who knows. Guedes is surely gone if he isn't even getting on the bench when fully fit (good).

I'd like that new CH and new ST, I think we'll get the former (Dawson) but not the latter.

 

[Tony Towner]

My worry would be is that squad going to score 20 goals? The starting defence don't have goals in them (Bueno over RAN), Nunes hasn't looked like scoring. Neves will be good for another couple of penalties and a worldie, so the vast majority has to come from the forward 4. Have they collectively got it in them? Have a feeling our wins are going to have to continue being 1 0s

 

[prawnking]

A lot of responsibility on Sarabia and Pod

 

[YoungWolf]

Tbf to Podence is he gets 8/9 goals this season as frustrating as he is hard to moan! Sarabia I reckon 5/6 goals.

We won’t be free scoring but if we can get ourselves to just over a goal a game we can really address it in the summer.

I think plan is 433 with Cunha up top but he probably wants another forward as he doesn’t believe in Raul or Costa that much

 

[NicholasG1973]

I’ve said it before, a central striker must be priority - even over a CH.

If nothing else, it would give the squad massive confidence to know that there is a natural goal scorer in a central position - Costa and Raul just don’t seem to have that striker’s intuition any more and, when they do, neither have that ruthlessness in front of goal.

I would be begging Villa for Ings - he’d get us the goals we need - even if it’s just for this season.

 

[Langers]

We look far better in the final 1/3 than we did pre-Lopetegui. I don't think we'll be a free scoring team without a lot more improvements to the squad which will come in the summer provided we stay up, but previously, we didn't even look like creating anything. I think we've got much better since then, we're quicker on the counter, we've got better options in midfield, Cunha already looks like he will make a difference.

We definitely need better deliveries - Traore is infuriating with his dreadful deliveries at the end of promising moves when he's time and space to do much better. And there was so many better options at the end of last night than there was at the start in terms of personnel.

I worried far more about our output when we weren't creating anything - we should have enough to pull clear with our new additions and our much better head coach.

 

[sycophantia]

We look far better in the final 1/3 than we did pre-Lopetegui. I don't think we'll be a free scoring team without a lot more improvements to the squad which will come in the summer provided we stay up, but previously, we didn't even look like creating anything. I think we've got much better since then, we're quicker on the counter, we've got better options in midfield, Cunha already looks like he will make a difference.

We definitely need better deliveries - Traore is infuriating with his dreadful deliveries at the end of promising moves when he's time and space to do much better. And there was so many better options at the end of last night than there was at the start in terms of personnel.

I worried far more about our output when we weren't creating anything - we should have enough to pull clear with our new additions and our much better head coach.

Yep agree with this, although for parts of last night's game, we seemed to regress to pre JL style slow build up.

 

[Langers]

Yep agree with this, although for parts of last night's game, we seemed to regress to pre JL style slow build up.

Yeah we did, it was underwhelming. Although no way we would have seemed so lethargic or lacking any intensity if that was a league game.

I'd have been far more concerned if the performance v West Ham was like the performance last night.

 

[Kenny]

Yep agree with this, although for parts of last night's game, we seemed to regress to pre JL style slow build up.

Been a issue since the Nuno days, a team plonks 9 or 10 men behind the ball and we go across, backwards, across...seemingly afraid to try a pass to split them or make a run etc. (amazed though I am talking about Liverpool setting up for 45 mins to shut a game down and first thought is not concede rather than score).

It got better when Cunha was on though, some good link up between him and Raul/Costa and the midfield and he should have tested the keeper more than he did on this 3 openings.

Bit of a pisser our next 2 games are against City and Liverpool as its highly likely fans will be put back on the negative stance with the expected results and then position in the League

 

[Walnut]

The biggest problem for me is our build up play is to to slow. Alan Shearer said it last night too.
We give the opposing team so much time to get organised.

 

[prawnking]

It's madness. Improved somewhat under JL but still ingrained and liable to be the default. You can't expect a Neves worldie, a one-in-a-million perfect cross to one player or the most precise and intricate of interplaying on the edge of the box to be the only ways you can score. But we do!

I like RAN, but constantly giving him the ball last night and expecting him to beat everyone and create most of our chances like he's peak CR7 is another stupid idea. Then if he actually gets near the penalty area there's one forward there and the rest of the team hanging back. If the idea is for a lot of the play to go through him (or Adama), clearly no-one told the rest of the team, as there was no attempt to anticipate or help them, they were both playing in isolation...head down, beat people, whack it in the box regardless of context

 

[YoungWolf]

I wouldn’t expect JL to be that different to Nuno in that sense. Quite deliberate in build up play. Think Julen will be better at doing that centrally than Nuno but not quite as clinical on the break. If it gets us winning games I don’t mind. The plan seems pretty clear to have Sarabia right and Podence left with the full backs overlapping, which is what we expected when he joined.

 

[sycophantia]

Been a issue since the Nuno days, a team plonks 9 or 10 men behind the ball and we go across, backwards, across...seemingly afraid to try a pass to split them or make a run etc. (amazed though I am talking about Liverpool setting up for 45 mins to shut a game down and first thought is not concede rather than score).

It got better when Cunha was on though, some good link up between him and Raul/Costa and the midfield and he should have tested the keeper more than he did on this 3 openings.

Bit of a pisser our next 2 games are against City and Liverpool as its highly likely fans will be put back on the negative stance with the expected results and then position in the League

I think City having the ball a lot and actually trying to attack might suit us a bit. Obviously the issue is keeping City out.

 

[prawnking]

I don't see much desire to score goals in our squad, as daft as it sounds. The kind of desire and confidence Jota had.

Hopefully Sarabia has it, he definitely bucks the trend of us signing players with no previous inclination for goalscoring and just sort of expecting them to pick it up at Wolves