The squad needs work.... but we knew this already

That we need to improve the squad shouldn't be a surprise

Judging by the looks of twitter post Newcastle away, you’d have thought we’d lost a key league game or CL final, not second round of the fourth ranked competition we play in.

Honestly, I’m not too bothered about it. Yes, I’m a little disappointed we’re out of a cup competition, and the way we gave goals away was disappointing, but to me the league cup wasn’t a key target this year. The targets for me are top 4 and winning the Conference League, and I think we’re well on course for both. I believe head coach Enzo Maresca knows that too.

Our B team is definitely good enough to get us to the knockout stages of the Conference League, when our first team will gradually play more games and take us to win it. In the meantime our first XI play one game a week which keeps them fresher for the busy Christmas period and the second half of the season, and helps them avoid injury. This will all allow us to achieve these two big targets for the season.

One thing people are melting down about is that the depth players aren’t up for competing with decent PL teams like Newcastle. I don’t fully agree with this, but it IS true that we need further additions to make this squad capable of competing for the title and CL, together.

Though I don’t get the sudden outrage about it, I mean, didn’t we know this already? The squad isn’t complete, we knew this in the summer. This squad isn’t ready to challenge for the title this season, again something we knew. The targets this season are more modest, and the squad we have, I believe is, well capable of achieving them.

Long term do we need to improve the squad in some key areas to be title challengers? Yes, but we already know the sporting directors are working on those issues.

We also know also that we have a lot of young talent coming into the squad next summer before we make any signings, which is all planned.

We already know Estevao Willian, Andrey Santos, potentially Lesley Ugochukwu, Aaron Anselmino and GK Mike Penders and/or Djorde Petrovic could all come into the squad next season. Kendry Paez might too, though might be loaned.

This site has reported we’re looking at GK, CB, LB and ST as positions to improve the squad in the next couple of windows. If we can add the right players in those positions, we’ll be away.

For example, say we signed Diogo Costa, Ruben Dias/Antonio Silva, Patrick Drogu, and Liam Delap (unless you can get Gyokeres for £60m), whilst selling the likes of Sanchez, Kepa, Disasi, Badiashile, Trev (unless they brought him back), Chilwell, Carney (though I don’t want to lose him), Casadei, Broja and one or two attackers, then our squad looks way more complete and ready to challenge, and we’ll be able to pay for it with sales.

I’m confident we can achieve top 4 and winning the Conference League, as I said, I think the squad we have is well capable of achieving both. Indeed we may not even need top 4, top 5 might be enough, as 5th in the PL could mean Champions League football this year. English teams are winning lots of European games and they all count towards the coefficient, so there’s a good chance the PL will get that extra spot, which increases our chances of getting Champions League football.

One bad game, one bad performance, in the competition that matters least, at an away ground that’s always tough to go to even with a full strength team, isn’t a disaster. We’ll go into Sunday still on a positive run, with a totally different team, a full strength squad ready to compete with Manchester United, who’ve had their first game under the new interim boss now to “let off steam”. We’ll be fresh and ready for them.

We will have a tough run at some point this season, all teams do. But I believe Enzo Maresca has the man management skills and tactical nous to get us out of it relatively quickly when it eventually comes.

We just have to keep backing him and the team, safe in the knowledge the squad will be improved in the coming windows.

The Score