Four centre-backs in the last five years, but previous decade was predominantly midfielders.
2012 - Garath McCleary
2013 - Chris Cohen
2014 - Andy Reid
2015 - Michail Antonio
2016 - Dorus de Vries
2017 - Eric Lichaj
2018 - Ben Osborn
2019 - Joe Lolley
2020 - Matty Cash
2021 - Joe Worrall
2022 - Scott McKenna
2023 - Morgan Gibbs-White
2024 - Murillo
2025 - Nikola Milenkovic
I see 5 primarily attacking players in 15 seasons. Cash won as a right back. Osborn a bit of everything but not much of an attacker.
Didn't someone say Nuno post match was indicating he didn't want many signings. I'm really confused by that. We didn't have enough players for this season let alone adding in (hopefully) a dozen or so European games.
It's the bit at 4:40 here:
youtu.be/HBXb_z_-V1U?si=fjw15I2opeqOGrVt
Doesn't really say anything of the sort. No idea what I thought I heard.
He does love a smaller squad though.
One of the few positions where the competition for places was really weak. Aina is affordable as well as proven in this league.
Plus he played like a distracted man those last few weeks. I think he's off.
Distracted or not fully fit but rushed back as we had limited options.. time will tell.
I think he was rushed back, but options weren't limited - Neco to RB and then Toff or Moreno at LB.
Pretty obvious Nuno doesn’t rate either of them highly.
I'm hoping that, when MGW goes, we will reinvest that plus a little more in the same way Villa did when they sold Grealish, and end up with a deeper squad as a result.
I do find this whole "Nuno doesn't want a bigger squad" narrative interesting. We can all see that we need one, and squad building isn't the job of the manager. And let's be honest, our recruitment machine seems to be pretty fucking good at their job. If the narrative is true, and I'm not convinced that it entirely is, but if it is and he digs his heels in, there will only be one winner.
I think they can easily make the pool of players bigger without necessarily making the overall squad bigger. There's only 13 or 14 players in the current squad Nuno trusts to start games at all. (The 11 on Saturday + Yates and CHO and arguably Danilo. Outside of that 13 only Moreno started more than 6.) Get that up to 18 or 19 and we'd look far stronger and be able to change things up for the midweek games to keep people involved and fit.
What Simon says.
Shifting the players Nuno doesn't trust, or getting him to trust them, is a challenge.
I still can't quite believe the turnover of players we've had in just 3 years. Only a handful are left from that first transfer window. Neco, Big Willy, MGW, Toff, Taiwo, Hennessy. Certainly last 2 summers made our overall dealings look a lot better.
I’m as guilty as anyone else of having concern about our squad depth coping with a European campaign. But how are Spurs going to cope? How will Palace? At least we’ll be able to put out a reserve team in some of our games (assuming we have more than two).
FINISH: 10th
European Adventure: Winners
League cup - 3rd round
F.A. CUP - 5th round
Departures: Morgan, Sosa (think he has already left which makes me sad because I think there was a player in there), Taiwo (sorry), The back up goalie (the big Brazilian fellow) and the out of contract players.
Player of the Season: Lazarus (otherwise known as the Brazilian wonderkin who gets hurt all the time and then plays anyway...Murillo).
Chicago: Pragmatic.
