Are we ready for the start of the season?

Chicharo

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Anyway, we have to be. In a week, we'll face City, and on 16.8. we play against Fulham.

Against City, we’ll likely field a team very similar to the one we had in the cup final.
However, our biggest reinforcement is injured, along with several other players who are also dealing with injuries.
Zirkzee hasn't even made his debut yet.
We still haven't strengthened the midfield, so it looks like Casemiro will start the season.

On the bright side, preseason has shown that we can definitely count on Amad, and Amass has performed very well too. We also still have enough time to offload some players and bring in Ugarte, de Ligt, and possibly someone else.

What are your thoughts on our current situation?
 
Transfer window is still open, so I expect there will be more incoming and outgoing players, especially considering Yoro's injury. I guess we are as ready as we can be, considering our injury issues and the transfer business we are still working on.

I'm not expecting too much this season. The main thing I'm excited about is the upper management changes.
 
Simply cannot see anything but a rough 6 months or so ahead

Don’t want to think that but something feels wrong
 
Absolutely not ready. We have too much deadwood still at the club. Yoro out, not enough signings, midfield and defence still a worry. Think its going to be another long season
 
We’re in a worse state than last year. Nothing we can do about the Euros, but last night we had to start the right back we are trying to sell. A 17 year old kid at left back. A free transfer who was barely supposed to play last year, let alone this year. Another kid next to a year older Casemiro. Sancho again back as a false 9.

Without a doubt we’ll have the likes of Bruno, Dalot etc back for Fulham, but we’ll be starting the season massively on the back foot. This is why people expecting big progress in the space of one year are out of their minds.

We’re so lucky our academy is functioning otherwise the squad would be a disaster.
 
Amass' pre season performances have been grossly overhyped. Awful defensively, and once it costs us in a game that matters opinion will quickly change.

Playing next to Martinez would hopefully help him but still a huge concern if we need to rely on him in the league.
 
The post euros thing doesn’t help. Neither does injuries already mounting before a competitive ball has been kicked. Squads are still all over the place but there’s less than two weeks to go. We’ve got a lot of work to do to be ready for Fulham who you know will be fit and organised.
 
Midfield still severely lacking. Only one fit LB and he himself is a crock. Starting the season with Martinez, Lindelof, and Maguire at CB. Hojlund already injured as well and Zirkzee didn't play at the Euros while also not having preseason. Question marks all over the pitch.

So no. Business as usual then.
 
we are definitely starting the season - community shield - weaker than last season.

At CB we are poorer given that Varane has left and Yoro's injury.
LB/RB, Bissaka's likely transfer means only Amass as a player with some game time
Centre mid: Casemiro seems to have gone a couple of levels down. No other signing yet.
Attk Mid: Only bright spark as Amad / Rashford have had good game time and Amad especially looks to be an upgrade to Antony.
ST: Hoijlund's injury means we again have to depend on one striker, who hasnt had a single training session with the squad yet.

Hopefully, by the time Fulham game rolls in we would have had a 2-3 more transfers in and time for our starters to get match fit
 
Well given literally half of our first team have yet to kick a ball for us since last season, of course not. But that’s to be expected, given half of our first team are yet to kick a ball for us.
 
Without any reinforcements (that should already have been here in time to bed in properly), no I don’t think so.

Once again, we’re short in midfield, CB and LB. Either due to injury, quality or both.

Bit disheartening after what was such a positive start. Hoping for the best but am worried that not much has changed since last year.
 
If we get a proper DM, we are fine to fight for top4 assuming we have a "normal" season in terms of injuries. If we are stuck with Casemiro only, 8th place here we come.
 
Telsim said:
Midfield still severely lacking. Only one fit LB and he himself is a crock. Starting the season with Martinez, Lindelof, and Maguire at CB. Hojlund already injured as well and Zirkzee didn't play at the Euros while also not having preseason. Question marks all over the pitch.

So no. Business as usual then.
Click to expand...
The Zirkzee thing worries me ever so slightly

I think it’s a good sign when they insist on joining the group after not playing much in the international tournament. Shows they have a bit between their teeth and are desperate to get stuck straight in.

Hopefully it’s just a case that the club wouldn’t allow it anyway
 
It's been pretty standard fare so far. Despite all the hype about Ineos coming in and the mythical "structure" being in place, we've had 2 signings coming into August, with a lot of players we're trying to offload still here. It's been quite similar to recent years, where we get a couple of signings early, but then struggle to progress further until the latter weeks of the window.

Of course, most rational people would understand that the likes of Ashworth, Wilcox etc are still getting their feet under the table and we won't be seeing any concrete results for at least a couple of years.

I assume we'll get a couple more players at least before the Fulham game and likely 1/2 more before the transfer deadline. Which again would be keeping in with how we've done our business the last few years.

In terms of style of play, while our press seems more coordinated, the big issue of wide spaces across the midfield still seems to be there. The likes of Eriksen and Casemiro don't help with it despite their other qualities.

Plus, at least for me, Yoro and De Ligt aside, our signings/transfer targets don't really fill me with great excitement. I reckon it'll be a season where we'll have a few purple patches but ultimately won't finish higher than 3rd/4th.
 
feels like last summer.
Fresh starts, decent early signings, then nothing afterward. Plus shit preseason & injuries to boost.
It's going to be a rough fight for top 4.
 
At least.. We are still lack of a starter of DM and CB...
 
padzilla said:
If we're not, Southgate is waiting.
Click to expand...

I think I’d be willing to tolerate a bottom half finish under ten Hag than face the prospect of the waistcoat wasting two more years attempting to implement another failed project.

I’m EtH in, regardless of results, until the spectre of Southgate has disappeared.
 
Our biggest problem last year was the gulf between defence and midfield that needed better legs to remedy. To remedy that we have managed one signing who is out injured. So, no, we are very far from ready.
 
The injuries haven't helped but we've still got a couple of weeks to get players in. I'm still positive.
 
Nowhere near ready

We’ve added a squad rotation striker and our new defender is out for 3 months

We’re in a scramble to sell AWB and possibly McTominay to raise funds it’s a mess
 
Nowhere near. Loads of work to do.

Think about what was the consensus at the of last season -

New DM
New CBx2
New Striker

Shift - Varane, Maguire, Casemiro, Martial, Lindelof, Antony, Sancho, Greenwood, VdB

That was generally seen as a minimum. Our biggest signing is out til late Oct and one for the future truth be told, our other is a relative unknown who may or may not be a striker. Granted we have moved on a decent chunk but it's pretty grim that it looks like we will end up keeping hold of Casemiro, Sancho, Antony and Maguire.

I'm excited for the new era and think the squad will improve in the next couple of weeks but this is going to take a number of seasons to fix with no guarantee we will be in a position to spend how we may need to.
 
Midfield is still horrific and we need to sort the LB and CB position out. 12 days to go until the season starts.

There's also a big questionmark regarding the striker position, I guess we'll have to see whether Zirkzee is actually good at scoring goals.
 
I think we need to sign more expensive young players with questionable condition coming from different leagues(preferred Eredivisie, or have played there) who might turn out good in 3-5 years. That will really help us this season.

And even if they don't turn up good in that time we can always use the excuse of them coming too young here into a transitional team that changes managers, etc. In that case both manager and these players have excuses for not paying out the trust.
 
I thought Ashworth and Berrada were brought in to avoid this mess? Do they really fancy this team to finish top 4? Casemiro jogging around in midfield. What is the improvement from last season?
 
Nowhere near. This season is going to be painful.
 
nothing has changed, we'll be fielding an incoherent team with players who we'd all (including ETH) rather see moved but we can't move them due to high wages.
will be more of the same, half-arsed past it Casemiro is like a red carpet for opposition in the midfield, defence will include likes of Maguire and Evans, and we will rely on quick counters. We also still seem to pick up an average of a 1 serious injury per game. Dreading the season as it stands.
 
The Euros have fecked us, it's going to be a scramble to get those players match fit. Also, if under INEOS the priority is to win then why did we embark on a continent spanning pre season? The only reason I can think is to make money. If you're going to America then fine but why not just stay in one state or pick a side of the country? Winds me up.
 
Two weeks to go, same old players. Same old football. Are we ready? No
 
The same players that have constantly failed year after year are still here but as usual we will go into another season with the same shite players expecting a different outcome as that's what we do.
 
No, but I wasn't expecting us to be, especially after a big international summer. Plus, the early injuries haven't helped.

I imagine the squad will look a bit different come the 1st September though, so I'll start to really judge this team in the weeks and months after that.
 
We are not ready, transfer activity seems dead in both ways.
 
Not even close. Too many injuries, too similar to the team we had last season. You’d of expected we would have sold a few more of these players but clearly we can’t make people buy our players. They’re expensive, on big wages, it was never going to be easy. Sancho, Maguire, mctom, Casemiro, awb, lindelof probably would have all been sold by now if we had takers willing to pay for them… issue being, we don’t.


We got to hope for a few sales in the next week.
 
I don't think we'll ever be ready under this manager.
This pre season has been as bad as the last and look how that turned out. Our general play is nowhere near good enough.

He's our Koeman/De Boer
 
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