Next Seasons Squad - hypothetically

[DefourFiveSix]

Hi Clarets!

At the end of what was perhaps another false dawn, it is very close to confirmed now that we will be back in the Championship next season.
So much has been written about the disaster of this season already so I won’t piggyback on the how’s and why’s as they have been done to death and I want to be somewhat positive because we could well be on for a fun season again next year and hopefully slowly forget about the car crash of 23/24.

Even if we don’t have a full rebuild again this summer, I expect it will be a busy window once more, just due to the sheer size of our squad, along with contracts expiring and loans ending. So, what would your ideal 25 man squad for next season be looking like? All subjectively of course - we have no idea how it will play out and I’m sure there’ll be a lot of surprises again along the way.

Regardless, here’s what I have come up with:

OUT (Definite):
- Cork/Rodriguez (a thank you and farewell for two modern legends)
- Taylor (seems like his time has run its course. Deserves a move to somewhere he can play his natural/traditional LB role)
- Assignon (would love to keep him but don’t see it)
- Fofana (off you pop)
- Tresor (See Fofana, but if we’ve committed to buying him I imagine he’ll go on loan like Wout did)
- Twine (might be able to offer us something different, not sure how his loan spell has been)
- Weghorst/McNally/Bastien/Churlinov/Costello/Dodgson/Egan-Riley

OUT (If funds needed):
- Trafford (Liverpool linked)
- Berge (love him but maybe he deserves to stay in the Prem now)
- Odobert (could see him at a club like Palace, and they could afford him if Eze/Olise go for big bucks)
- Amdouni (never got going, think there’d be options abroad)
- Beyer (apparently in demand, I’d let him go given our depth at CB and his injury record)
- Benson (hard to see him wanting to stay after this season, but who knows?)

In an ideal world, we’d keep these six players who’d all be excellent in the Championship (maybe a loan needed for Trafford) but I imagine there’d be suitors for all of them and we might need to sell at least some to account for the drop in revenue. We’ve also been told repeatedly we buy players to sell on, we just might not make the profit on players we had hoped this time. All six have at least three years left on their contracts so I think we’d get a good chunk of cash for them if needed.

All that taken into account, here is a potential (and hypotheticall) squad list for next season. I understand players such as Muric, Roberts, Zaroury, Obafemi, etc might want out too but here we go anyway - you can see that even if we severely trim our squad with all of the outgoings above, we still have a very strong side for the second division even before we buy any new players.

2024/25:
GK: Muric, Vigouroux, NEW GK
RB: Roberts, Vitinho
LB: New LB, Delcroix
CB: Esteve, O’Shea, Ekdal, Al Dakhil
CM: Cullen, NEW CM, Massengo, Ramsey
CAM: NEW CAM, Brownhill, JBG
RW: Koleosho, Redmond
LW: JBL, Zaroury
ST: Foster, NEW ST, Obafemi

This is assuming Brownhill got an extension (VK confirmed this?) and we make JBL’s loan a permanent (think he’d be a good option at this level). Esteve is a no brainer and I think it’s in place for him to stay too? Also think JBG has another year in him. Redmond has a year left on his contract and has been unlucky with injuries so can’t see him leaving. Did I read we have a deal in place for a new right back already or did I dream this? If so, Roberts might be on his way too.

So that’s a reserve keeper, first choice LB, strong midfielder and maybe an experienced striker in the Barnes mould and we wouldn’t be looking too shoddy at all. Most of that squad would already be familiar with VK’s methods too.
We’d also be a good prospect for potential loan players given Maatsen and Tella’s success stories (but maybe don’t want to go overboard this time given how hard it is to keep them after a good season).

I won’t profess a great knowledge of potential players - but it’s good fun to speculate anyway. I’d love to see us go back for O’Hare on a free to play in the #10 and somebody like Morgan Whittaker to challenge Foster up front, but both players have been linked with Premier League moves. I do hope the left back situation will finally be resolved this window, we’ve been sitting on it for far too long. We’d obviously need a Berge replacement too if he were to leave which is easier said than done.

What do you think Clarets? Went on a tangent a bit there and it’s impossible to predict so much, but eager to see your thoughts on what you’d like our squad to look like next season.

What struck me was that we have players to sell if needed and some deadwood to trim, but also a good core of players that are another year experienced, under contract and hopefully want to stay and take us back up again. I’m not sure it will be as easy as we made it look last time but I’m excited to see what we can do.

Remember: Positivity!
UTC.

[Vim Fuego]

Who stays who goes, right ?

[CaptainKirk]

Can’t believe you actually typed all that