Not Actually that Crucial a Summer as of August 2023...beginning to now think everything isnt fine!

Squad depth though shouldnt really be an issue. Its the quality of your squad that matters. I mind Martin O'Neil's squad here. We literally had about 3 or 4 other players outwith the starting 11 that would even be considered for going on the park. Look how successful Martin was for us. He kept the same starting 11 as much as possible. We had one player I think that we honestly could say that if we bring him on there was a guarantee that the standard wouldnt drop....that man was John Hartson. The rest of the squad...Guppy, Momo Sylla, Maloney, and the rest were young team.

Squad depth is not the issue. Quality is the issue

 

I'm being hypocritical as I said earlier this thread should be binned (it still should tbh) but I think today highlights how poor our recruitment was in the summer.

I don't trust anyone outside the starting 11 to make a proper difference. We have almost zero creativity on the wings and little pace in midfield.

Obviously we're going to drop points as the season goes on, I get that, it's just frustrating watching us drop points against the two worst teams we've played this season. Easter Road isn't easy for us but my *, Hibs were atrocious.

Still 5 clear after tomorrow, its far from the end of the world, but with a better summer window I think we're 9 clear and on, at least, 4 points on the CL.

 

It’s games like today that highlight how all the ‘panty wetters’ were right to be concerned with our abysmal business in the summer.

A few days after a European game and an injury to one key player, and before you know it you’ve got Jimmy Forrest and Mikey Johnston trying to win you a game in 2023.

* laughable, as is the the attempted justification of it from a select few.

 

Massive improvements in wide areas is required.

Badly need wingers who can beat a player and produce something.

It's been said many times but in games like today when there's no space in behind Maeda is useless.
Palma looks capable of creating or scoring but still havnt seen him go past a full back.
The rest of wingers are *

Both full backs offer nothing as an attacking option. It's a major downside to our previous manager having such a specific way of playing that we now have full backs incapable of going beyond g our wingers and getting to the bye line

 

And decent amount of cash in the bank that we won't touch.

 

Left back and CM is top for me in January. If Hatate is out we are so slow in midfield, nobody else offers that energy. Another striker would be good as well.

Then we can look at goalkeepers in the summer and replacing whoever we sell.

 

In 2017 brendan had vast options

Dembele and Griffiths ST
Roberts and forrest RW
Rogic and Armstong CM
Brown and Bitton CDM
Tierney and Izzy LB
Sinclair and GMS LW
McGregor and Ntcham CM

Compare that to today * me but we have £72m in bank and no debt!

Bain
Seigresit
Bernabei
Phillips
Yuki
Kwon
Holm
Yang
Oh
M Johnston
Turnbull
Forrest

There is a Start for guys who ye wouldn't miss.

Tough on some but shows how bad our summer business was! Done what ange told us not to. 4 x £2m punts rather than 1 x £8m player!!!

 

Bottom line is summer transfer window wasnt near good enough. Looking like its cost us in the CL.. Its on the scouting department and the board to rectify it. We still have a league title to play for.

 

Final year of guaranteed UCL entry and a minimum of £50m with the new structure

 

We have to back Brendan.

 

We still need quality starters for the following positions:

GK, LB, RW, DM

Depth needed for the following positions:

RB, LB, LW, ST

That's 8 players, 4 of which needed addressing in the summer. I'd be surprised if the likes of O'Riley, Hatate and Kyogo are here this time next summer too. Feels like we're going to be a in a perpetual state of rebuilding unfortunately.

And to think we could have had our strongest squad that could compete on all fronts this season had the club done their job properly in the Summer. A massive missed opportunity that is unlikely to be rectified moving forward, because key players will no doubt depart again over the next two windows. Does anyone really trust them to replace these players properly?

On the evidence of the last 3 transfer windows, the answer is no.

 

Way things are going just call us project FC and really we need to look at the eastern Europe market for players and stop looking at the far East market unless we are buying quality.

 

Mikey Johnson and James Forrest still making appearances off the bench in the hope they win us games. says all you need to know about our recruitment.

 

Not necessarily there is still a decent chance S Scotland will be 10th at the end of this season and therefore still have guaranteed CL in 25/26 as well.

It is next season when we drop off a cliff as 19/20 goes and that was the year we won our EL group and they got to last 16. Also they had the benefit of playing all those qualifiers to build coefficient points.

We need 4 ready to go players in January and them in sharp so they can be part of our training camp.

Next summer I see there being a fair few who look to move on as they will have been here for 2.5-3 seasons which is normally the max we get to keep good players.

We need to get a fair few out too and some of the new signings out on loan as it seems clear Tilio, Kwon, Lagerbielke, now Yang and Oh too aren’t what Rodgers is looking for.

 

The only positions we have good depth in are centre mid (and even then, it’s not brilliant), centre back and maybe right back.

One decent keeper. One decent left back. A couple of reliable enough wingers - even then, nobody close to Jota level. One good striker.

If Kyogo gets injured we’re *. Can’t keep relying on O’Riley to bang in the goals from midfield.

 

The big issue is some of that deadwood just arrived. In the summer there we had just managed to get some of that deadwood shifted and now seem to have replaced it with more.

Of those signed in the summer arguably 6 of the 9 could be loaned out or loans cancelled and we wouldn’t miss them. Given we lost Jota, Starfelt and Mooy all who contributed significantly at best we are where we were but realistically we are not as good and never tried to address positions that stood out like a sore thumb. The commentary in the annual report suggests we were more concerned with keeping the wage bill from getting any higher.

 

Brendan’s no idiot. Using Johnston and Forrest is a clear message to the board.

 

Should have used them from the start. At least we wouldn't have started with tired players.