18 Aug 2021 09:52:06
Sending Davies and Woodburn out on loan and the potential Phillips sale suggests we might be giving up on registering the 25-man squad.

If that is the case, even the eventual sales of Shaq and Origi will not be enough to make room for incomings.

Perhaps Taki and/ or Ox are destined to go out on loan or sold? Or maybe we do nothing?

18 Aug 2021 10:54:15
And there’s still two weeks to go … how cool is the transfer window 😁.

18 Aug 2021 11:20:28
How does sending out Davies and Woodburn stop us from registering a 25 man squad? We would have Kelleher, Gomez, Henderson, TAA, Milner, Ox, Jones, and the choice of registering either Elliott or Neco Williams as the 8th player. But for the UCL we will have club-trained players in Kelleher, TAA and Jones only (thus falling one short unless Neco Williams is registered) .

18 Aug 2021 11:43:51
Jones, Elliott, N. Williams and R. Williams don't need to be named in the 25 man squad this season, ArAy. We have 4 players who count as club trained and would need to be named in the 25 to play. Kelleher, Trent, Ojo and Woodburn. Ojo will be on his way out though and Woodburn looks like he's going to Hearts on loan. So in the Champions League we'd only be able to name 23 'senior' players.

Davies is irrelevant to all of this as he isn't club trained anyway, and we have plenty of homegrown players currently.

It's not really an issue naming less players though considering we do have so many under 21 players capable of contributing. In the Premier League 25 man squad, they don't even take the club trained aspect into account (yet) .

18 Aug 2021 11:54:05
ArAy- Jones, Elliot and Neco get a free pass in the PL so we are essentially registering 6 home grown and 17 foreign and giving up two HG places which could be occupied by Philips/ Woodburn/ Davies.

18 Aug 2021 12:47:01
If Phillips, Woodburn and Ojo leave along with Shaqiri and Davies then we have a 24 man squad for the PL.

It would leave us with 6 HG players needing registering. That means we could only name a 23 man squad in the league meaning someone misses out. probably Karius.

We would then have to sell Karius (or not register him - just let the man leave) and another ‘foreign’ player like Origi to make way for a signing like Sarr or Traoré. That’s a lot of people leaving just to sign one ‘foreign’ player over the age of 21. Signing Barnes or Bowen would’ve been a better option if money was available before sales. Doku is under 21 and would not need registering, but it pushes the problem further down the road. Maybe he could replace Mané next year.

18 Aug 2021 15:26:43
I'm aware of what the rules are in regards to HG requirements and the U23s (Ed002 has clarified easily over a 100 times) . It's a technicality. My point was if a player is in your first team squad and can be registered, therefore allowing you to fulfil both EPL and UCL requirements then why wouldn't you do it? You keep the HG U23s off the 25 squad so that you bring in senior players who are HG? Which one of Traoré, Sarr, Duko, Bissouma, Neuhaus, Sanches, and all the other prospective purchases, is HG exactly? None are except for Bowen (probably, I have no idea) . So it's a choice. Show up with a squad of 25 registered players, or show up with 22 players and 3 HG U23's, which amounts to the same thing.

18 Aug 2021 18:51:02
ArAy it's not a choice of turning up with 25 or 22+3 as you put it.

For PL it's a choice between showing up with 22 over-21s plus an unlimited amount of U21s, or with 25 over-21s plus an unlimited amount of U21s. So by keeping Davies, Philips and Woodburn we would essentially have 3 extra players available to us with no squad vacancy cost.

For CL it's a little more complicated but essentially keeping Woodburn and Philips gives us a free shot at adding them to the 2 club-trained slots which would otherwise remain unfilled.

Agreed that signing foreign players you have listed will only work if some foreign players (Shaq, Minamino, Origi) leave.

18 Aug 2021 21:27:18
Guaranga, that was a boring thread.