Time to rebuild for 2016/17

A defence wins you leagues, strikers keep you up. We've got the 4th highest goal scorer in the league and Fulham have the 2nd. Just because someone's banging them in doesn't mean you'll be a top 6 team.... It will help obviously but we need to focus on keeping the goals out.

 

Players out of contract this summer for championship clubs

http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/championship/endendevertraege/wettbewerb/GB2

 

Criag Noone would be decent!

 

Hence both areas need improving,plus the midfield.
Going to be a busy time for LJ.

 

Dembele of Fulham is the stand out name in the list, and would fit all of City's key criteria in a new signing, however he will be highly sought after this summer. Most likely he will be signed by a Prem club and loaned back to Fulham or a team expected to do well in the Championship next season.

Any of Turner (Cardiff), Smith (Ipswich) or Halford (Rotherham) would be good additions to the defence.

 

Whenever I look at our squad and think what needs strengthening, it can be a bit puzzling. For example, Look at the defence and you think Flint, Matthews and Baker have done great and Golbourne isn't bad, so what would I change? Ayling probably a keep too.

Bearing in mind 2 are loans, we either need to sign or replace.

Midfield, Smith is a starter, Pack has improved big time, Tomlin is a keep. Bryan useful.Freeman probably a keep.
Up top, Kodjia I do still question but he has scored well. Wilbs will be back up. Agard not likely to feature. We do need a striker, yes.
In goal, O'Donnell unlikely to be replaced and Fielding is an adequate replacement. O'Leary there as back up.

Yet, we finish near the bottom, needed some good loan players to dig us out of it and leaked 70 goals with 2 to play. Kodjia did his bit, but we didn't score enough. Tomlin has 6 but Freeman, Smith and Pack I believe have got just 1 between them. That is an area that we need to work on, on the training ground.

 

Please, not Halford. Any player who feigns serious injury and then trots back on without any damage, is not welcome here.

 

gdknac, I often think the same, lots on here rave about most of those players individually, yet as you say we have struggled to contain a lot of sides this year. It shows the huge challenge for LJ to work out exactly which areas/players to target.

For sure LJ needs to figure out how to get concentration levels up, as I doubt there is a team in the land who has thrown away more points in the final minutes of a game than us this season!!

 

Sadly cider that is the modern footballer. I hate it too

Also Ched Evans anyone, had his conviction quashed I noticed????

 

Makes great recovery from serious injury though

 

We are going to need to be very shrewd in the market,or we are going to see some big money spent i reckon.

 

Very true, which is why it's grating when people insist we need to sign players with 'proven Championship experience', but seem surprised when the fees attached to such players are extortionate (I'm thinking of McCormack, Rhodes etc.).

There'll have be a mix of speculating on lower/foreign league players (Bradley Dack), more experienced players whose contracts are up/only have a year to run and possibly a single marquee signing.

Me personally, I think a strong defensive midfield presence (the next N'Golo Kante would do!) could have the single biggest impact of any potential signing - someone who can break up attacks early and start ones for us also.

 

Famous saying Nick you generally get what you pay for,we have two options, the gamble route,or the proven route.
Time will tell what happens.

 

Need a striker to play up front with Kodjia in my opinion. Kodjia is not a lone striker but one who does well with another. We need to build a squad around 442 whilst signing players who can allow for formation and tactical changes when required

 

Generally yes, but we can't afford to sign five 'proven' players (and they're not adverse to failure either), but good scouting can improve your chances of 'punts' being successful (when all is said and done, I think £2m for Kodjia has proven to be excellent value).

We don't have the financial muscle to buy our way to success, but enough to be canny with.

 

Our owner does,i read in the financial times that SLs interest on his billions alone is something like 120 million a year.
SL has to decide as years are passing by does he want to see city in the prem after the huge amounts he has invested.

 

Well, I don't know about that, but it's still not necessarily right to count all his money and say it should go to City - it's hardly like he's skimped during his tenure.

All joking aside RR, what exactly do you expect from City? What sums do you think should be spent on how many players, and how far up the league should City be expecting to reach? It seems from your posts as though you believe only a handful of the current squad is good enough, think we ought to be spending many tens of millions to rebuild the squad and be pushing for promotion - is that right?

 

By the way Money is not always the answer, ask the Leicester fans! Good scouting and good management is priceless regarding success..

 

Having a few days to reflect days after our safety and for next season I think we're going to struggle again. The rebuilding job is too big. Not only do we have to bring in a lot of players who are championship quality, and I’m talking about at least 5-6 players, but we also have to ship out a lot of deadwood. The likes of Wagstaff, El Abd, Agard, no one will want these players.

Also in my opinion we still have players on comfortable contracts who aren’t good enough at this level, Reid, Burns and Wilbraham to name a few, and questionable players like Freeman, Pack etc. From our current squad I can name only four contracted players who I want starting next season, Flint, Smith, Golbourne and Kodjia.

If we can finish mid table next season it will be a fantastic job, people who think we can reach top 6 are in pure dreamland, just look at that Derby team who ripped us to shreds in the second half, their passing and movement was on a complete different level to ours. It’ll take 2-3 years to mount a top 6 push with constant re-building jobs in the transfer market.

People are going to be shocked next season..

 

Yes but it's his money not yours or mine or even City's money. He spent a fortune last time and really got us no where apart from in the red every season.
Plus there's this new thing being mentioned, only been going about 5 years so you might of missed it. It's called FFP and it basically means we can only operate within the income generated by the club. Lansdown could be earning 120 million (made up figure) a day it won't mean **** as the club will still be earning the same income.
Like Lan said bring your expectations down and you might enjoy it a bit more. Rome wasn't built in a day and all that.