Time to sell...or not, maybe.

[Mattspur]

With the addition of Soldado, we currently have 26 players in the first team squad.

1. Lloris
2. Friedel
3. Gomes
4. Walker
5. Naughton
6. BAE
7. Rose
8. Kaboul
9. Vertonghen
10. Dawson
11. Sandro
12. Dembele
13. Paulinho
14. Holtby
15. Parker
16. Sigurdsson
17. Huddlestone
18. Livermore
19. Bale
20. Lennon
21. Chadli
22. Townsend
23. Dempsey
24. Soldado
25. Adebayor
26. Defoe

Obviously we need another CB after the sale of Caulker, so that would make the squad 27 players. So that's 2 players that have to go to get the squad down to the acceptable 25. Any other new signings would also mean further sales.

Which brings me to something which I only thought about whilst writing this, and that's; If we were to sell Bale for £85m (or whatever nonsense figure the press are making up), with the suggested plan being that we could buy a replacement and 2 or 3 other good players, quite simply, we couldn't. We don't have the space in the squad for 3 additional players. it would mean that we would have to sell 5 players to allow us to bring in the three, and I don't see that happening.

So in summary...


Bale stays.

 

[easley91]

Parker, Hudd, Ade could all be off.

 

[Mattspur]

Parker, Hudd, Ade could all be off.

Possibly, but Parker hasn't gone to QPR yet. Rumor has it that Hudd wants to stay no matter what and that Ade is only interested in moving to Turkey if he has European football, which looks unlikely.

But the point is that if we do sell Bale, we'd also have to sell a number of others.

 

[AJW]

And Falque too. If bale stays the rest of the window will be about selling and improving where possible

 

[ilikeost]

Parker, Huddlestone, Livermore, Falque, Adebayor, Gomes.

 

[Mattspur]

Yes, yes, all very good. We can all name players that we think should be sold.

Again, the point is that selling Bale isn't just as easy as selling Bale. We'd have to make sure all these players were sold prior to his sale otherwise no one would pay the fees we want to receive because they'd know that we were under pressure to sell. We'd also have to buy all the new players before the window shuts so we're not left short and we'd no doubt get rinsed in the transfer market. The whole situation just seems unworkable in the time frame. You all know how long it takes us to sign or sell someone. Can you really see all that business being done in the next month?

 

[SlickMongoose]

I don't think we've had a squad small enough to fit into the 25 since the squad system came in, which is why we've had to loan out so many players. Which is ridiculous as 25 players is more than enough.