The squad - who stays, who goes?

[Ovis aries]

Please do not build your hopes up on Thorne too much , that is McClaren's biggest mistake this season , not getting a defensive midfield player in last pre-season . and not replacing Eustace when he got injured another huge mistake.

McClaren has lost it this season with bad decisions , two more huge one's not getting someone in for Martin and Bent when they sustained weeks out injuries

Hope all the people that have been saying different over the last few months now see what these mistakes have cost us , maybe not (rose tinted specs and all ).

[Derby Ram 123]

My ideal team for next season would be:

Butland, 

Wisdom, New experienced cb, Buxton, Forsyth (would like friend/mings but unrealistic)

Thorne, Hughes, Hendrick

Ince, Russell, Martin

 

[peakram]

I think Wisdom would be a sensible signing, Christie has potential but at the minute is probably too erratic for a full season.

I think Shotton and Albentosa are poor signings having seen them a bit more often and doubt we would get promoted with these playing any amount of games, Shotton looks clumsy and poor on the ball and doesn't use his size, while Albentosa lacks confidence on the ball and plays either negative or wayward passes.

Warnock seemed a strange signing though thought he did ok and was taken off too early today, leaving us wide open again like we had been in recent games (they hadn't looked a massive threat while he was on and it was only a Hughes error that gifted them the goal).

Bent and Ince although scoring goals had their faults, Bent not getting involved in general play and Ince being a bit too individual, Lingard looked on the lightweight side too. Think we should have played Russell and Ward more often as they were the blokes who got us up there.

Hendrick I think will not be much better than Championship level, another one who doesn't really put in a run of consistent games and is inconsistent within games.

If Thorne can get fit for a full season (and it is a big if) that would help massively but otherwise would be a bit worried that things will start going the wrong way a la Wigan Athletic.

 

[Cool As Custard]

​sorry but ive got to disagree

Bent/Ince have contributed more to our cause since they've came in than the majority of our squad put together, bryson, hencrick, shotton, christie, Albentosa, Warnock, lingard, ward, dawkins (last 3 due to lack play time)

Bent doesnt fit our system much, but to say hes a prima donna not playing for the team is a load of rubbish, what has he got? 12 goals in half a season not even playing in our system most effectively? not even playing every game, real lack of effort from him

but to say ince doesnt fit our system or doesnt contribute i have to disagree, you didnt watch him at forest, at hull, hes garbage in their system, but shines in ours, surely that means he fits our system, and unless youve been watching with a blindfold its pretty hard to notice him not tracking back and defending, you know that penalty he gave away against bimrmingham, couldnt have done that if he wasnt trying to be doing his defensive duties stuck over the half way line

If we didn't have ince or bent we'd be stuck in midtable, they've carried us for a good third of the season

 

 

 

I'm not saying we didn't need to bring players in at Xmas but if you look at the work ethic & performances pre Ince, Lingard & Bent & post their arrival there is no comparison.

McClaren forgot what had got him this far & was lazy in his acquisitions & bought on prior reputation rather than what would augment the existing group. A large target man to cover Martin who others could play off & an experienced holding midfielder were both essential. Ince  & Bent have delivered but at the expense of the rest of the team & the system that was working. The system & team will always deliver more than two individuals & we need a manager who will get back to basics & get back to get the players working for each other rather than relying on individual bits of brilliance to save the day. 

i know what I would rather see next season & if anyone can come in here & bring in some hungry talented unknown individuals who work hard & augment the other skills of the players we already have then I'm confident we will go one step further in 2015/16. I don't see anyway that the board will continue to back McClaren with more funds after the way he has used their investment to date & the players have clearly lost faith in him. A new voice & direction are both now required.

[Kernow]

​Interesting, I think my core would be similar, although I would swap Keogh for Albentosa, as I believe we could get more money for Keogh, and he needs to go if we're having an overhaul. I also can't see anyone going for Shotton. Maybe Christie has to go - we could get good money for him.

Personally, I'd like a first-team squad looking something like this:

Grant
Roos

Forsyth
Warnock
Christie
New RB (Wisdom, ideally)

Albentosa
Rawson
Buxton
New left-footed centre half

Thorne
Hanson

Hughes (unless we get a big offer)
Hendrick
Dawkins
New CM

Ward
Russell
Ince (ideally)
New winger (Bennett? Calero?)

Martin
New ST

 

With the first-team looking something like

Grant

Wisdom  Albentosa  New CB  Forsyth

Thorne

Hendrick  Hughes

Russell  Martin  Ince

Bench of Roos, Shotton, Buxton, Hanson, Dawkins, Ward, New ST.

Re Albentosa. He just doesn't look like the player he was made out to be? Where's this commanding, CB of the season from Spain? If there really were 12 clubs after him they should still want him. If we made money on him it wouldn't be bad.

Do we need to stick to this 4-3-3? If we have a new manager he could have his own system. Today 4-3-3 killed us. They had 5 midfielders and a pacey striker. If Hughes did leave we could easily mimic Boro's formation. We have a good attack and it would sure us up defensively.

For example.

Hughes & Thorne (holding)

Ince (perm) Pritchard (roaming) Russell

Martin

[Sexydadbod]

  Butland

Wisdom Buxton Shackell Obita

         Thorne Rohan Ince

Sako.      Pritchard.    James mcclean

             Martin

Imo hughes will go and we should use this money to strenghten

[MuespachRam]

Whilst people won't want to hear this Ince has been a massive part of our decline

He doesn't play to our system or hold the teams shape. Signing him would be the biggest mistake we could make.

Look at why Bournemouth, Brentford have been successful this season & why we were last season. No prima donnas, hungry & hard working players who work hard for the cause.

McClaren has been lazy & signing players like Ince, Lingard & Bent has just been papering over the cracks & his own deficiencies. We need a hungry manager & hungry disciplined players who will fight for the cause

Without bent and Ince we would have been out of the play off places 2 months ago..!

[Mostyn6]

Whilst people won't want to hear this Ince has been a massive part of our decline

He doesn't play to our system or hold the teams shape. Signing him would be the biggest mistake we could make.

Look at why Bournemouth, Brentford have been successful this season & why we were last season. No prima donnas, hungry & hard working players who work hard for the cause.

McClaren has been lazy & signing players like Ince, Lingard & Bent has just been papering over the cracks & his own deficiencies. We need a hungry manager & hungry disciplined players who will fight for the cause

​are you suggesting that Ince isn't hungry and hard-working? He's carried us in the last couple of months.

The players we need rid of are the ones which carry the mental scars.

Keogh, Forsyth, Ward, Bryson, Hendrick all can go.

[MuespachRam]

Ince, bent and lingaard won't come. 

Hughes will definitely be gone, if he has any sort of ambition he has to leave and I wouldn't hold it against him at all. 

We will get offers for martin, Russell, Hendrick and Keogh. The rest we will be stuck with. 

 

[eustonstation]

We played well for six months, awful for three. I don't think there's a need for a complete overhaul from front to back. Just several surgical upgrades, shock therapy for certain players, and some replacements for key loans who'll return to their parent clubs. 

Goalkeepers:

New #1 to replace Grant. We need a solid, reliable, week-in week-out goalkeeper who we don't even have to think about, just know he's there when we need him.

Defence:

Tons of room for upgrade here.

Keogh should go just so that we don't have to listen from the weekly "it's time for heroes" speech that the players ignore. 

Farewell to Fiasco Forsyth. 

Warnock was ultimately a wasted signing. Bye bye.

Whitbread's too old and too broken to rely on.

Keep the rest, but put Shotton on a very short leash, invest in a psychologist to rebuild Christie's confidence and see what Albentosa can do with a full pre-season to gel with the team. 

And, elevate Rawson to the first team. 

Midfield:

A few changes here too.

Goodbye to no-show Hendrick. If a decent offer comes for Bryson, it's goodbye from me. Eustace is too broken to rely on for a full season.

Ince, Mascarell and Lingard won't be back and all need to be replaced somehow.

I think Hughes will stay one more year, but if we get any offer of 15 million+, I'd take that and invest it in a replacement plus defence.

Hopefully George Thorne is fully recovered for next year and can show us what we paid for. And I'd like to see what Calero, Bunjaku and Hanson could do if they stepped up.  

Forwards:

Generally okay here, but we do need 1-2 solid, 10+ goal back-ups for Martin. One of those could be Johnny Russell but at least one more needs to come in to be safe.

Bent will be picked up by a lower PL team (which may well be a re-signing from Aston Villa now that he's shown his ability). 

Sammon should go, while Bennett and Ward should be on the bench.

Dawkins seems to have found his role, so keep him. 

Management:

I wouldn't be upset if McClaren & co. left. Mac's reputation got us good loans, but he's not the only highly regarded manager out there. He stuck with the wrong crew for too long and I think the players tuned him out. Whether that's because they knew he's leaving or not, it happened.

Sam Rush is the man we need to hold onto. GSE needs to fill his paycheck with all kinds of stock options!

And a solid, reliable captain, please. 

 

[Bridgford Ram]

I can't understand this at all. The guy has been our best left back in years, a few bad games this season and suddenly people don't want to see him in a Derby shirt ever again? I can't imagine we'd improve at LB without spending a significant amount.

My opinion hasn't been formed over the last few games.  I didn't rate him when he came in on loan and he has done nothing to convince me since.  In his defence he is not a LB and he is certainly not a CB unfortunately he can't kick a football in the right direction which makes me wonder if he is even a footballer.

[Bris Vegas]

Depends on the new manager, but we could see Bryson, Albentosa, Shotton, Warnock and Ward of the contracted players gone.

We've just gone massively backwards. I look at our XI today and it just looked poor. Loan players, out of form players, the likes of Warnock, Albentosa and Shotton are a clear backwards step on what we had last season,

I'm worried we've now got an overbloated squad of high wages all over again and we'll find it hard to get rid of some.

We've got to look at freshening things up. We didn't need experience players, as they've made us worse. We needed youthful players who could fit the system - something we didn't get.

The likes of Shotton, Albentosa and Warnock smacks of Boeteng, Greening and Derbyshire of poor buys Mac made at Forest.

[Posh Ram]

Re Albentosa. He just doesn't look like the player he was made out to be? Where's this commanding, CB of the season from Spain? If there really were 12 clubs after him they should still want him. If we made money on him it wouldn't be bad.

Do we need to stick to this 4-3-3? If we have a new manager he could have his own system. Today 4-3-3 killed us. They had 5 midfielders and a pacey striker. If Hughes did leave we could easily mimic Boro's formation. We have a good attack and it would sure us up defensively.

For example.

Hughes & Thorne (holding)

Ince (perm) Pritchard (roaming) Russell

Martin

Yeah, we could easily go away from 4-3-3, but we don't have to. It often does is well.

I advocated a move to a 4-2-3-1 earlier in the season, means we don't have to play either Hendrick or Bryson.

Dawkins (if Hughes goes)-Thorne

Ince (or Ward)-Martin-Russell

Pacy striker

Defensively solid, great at keeping the ball, capable of punishing teams on the breakaway. It wouldn't work with the current crap in defence though.

[curb]

Sell:

All

Keep:

None.

It's the end for this team and it'll be a new team next season, whichever of the current squad are still around. This team failed twice. It was good,  but didn't make it. I thinktime will heal, but the capitulation is what stands out right now.

So, when you've paid up all their contracts, and you've no money left, wher are you going to get a new squad from?

[RadioactiveWaste]

OK, so perhaps not all the players, but i do think they'll be quite a few moves both in and out over the summer.

We know no ones going to buy out Bryson's contract for example, but there's no one who i'd not consider selling if an offer came in.

plus i'm disappointed.

[The Scarlet Pimpernel]

Absolutely shocked some of you want to keep Albentosa and get rid of Keogh. 

[Cool As Custard]

Without bent and Ince we would have been out of the play off places 2 months ago..!

Not if we'd signed a decent target man & holding midfielder to continue to the existing postive pattern of play 

Look at curing the root cause rather than the sticking plasters....

[Cool As Custard]

​are you suggesting that Ince isn't hungry and hard-working? He's carried us in the last couple of months.

The players we need rid of are the ones which carry the mental scars.

Keogh, Forsyth, Ward, Bryson, Hendrick all can go.

Works hard but we have to change the way we play to accommodate him which has impacted rest of the team 

If we'd signed round pegs for round holes we wouldn't have been so disjointed & had a pattern of play we could rely on over the last 4 months like every other team that has made the playoffs 

[-JW-]

Only players I'm comfortable watching are Hughes and Martin.

[kingsy1884]

Let the 'off season of procrastination' commence.

Martin, Thorne & Hughes to stay the rest can go if bids come in.