Is the squad bloated?

This gets asked every year. We will always be carrying some dross especially when we are looking at getting players on the cheap. The flip side of this is we uncover some gems who nett us a pretty large profit to compensate for the extra wages the large squad incurs

 

Ronnie Hawthorn is bloated. The tory *

 

He's young, big, strong and quick - must be close to 1 in 2 for goals.
It would be Celtic's transfer record, but £8m for a striker isn't ridiculous.

 

Not really but I'd punt the bold players and loan out the italics

 

You’d loan everyone?

 

Given how injury ravaged we have been over the last 6 months I don't mind a few extra bodies. Especially given we have one eye on CL Qualifiers already

 

De Vries
Gordon
Hazard

Gamboa (Sell because he isn’t used)
Lustig
Ralston

Ajer
Boyata
Compper
Hendry
Šimunović
Sviatchenko (Sell)

Miller
Tierney

Armstrong (Sell, get a decent price)
Benyu
Bitton (Sell, he’s not needed)
Brown
Eboué
McGregor
Ntcham

Allan (Sell)
Christie
Musonda
Rogić

Hayes
Forrest
Johnston (Loan)
Morgan
Sinclair

Dembele
Griffiths
Ciftci (Sell, obvious reasons)

There’s other players I wouldn’t mind letting go of if we did like Hayes, McGregor, Gordon, Benyu in loan. Then there’s players like Christie, Miller, Morgan, Hendry (obviously we don’t know 100% about Morgan and Hendry yet) who are in that awkward position of needing game time but not got a good chance of starting.

Then there’s signings we need to make in a new GK, RB, CB. Not squad players, but top players who will go straight into the starting XI.

As for the loans that finish, I’d happily keep Roberts and Édouard. Price depending.

 

Everyone seems to think we’ll sell out entire team every window and it never happens. We won’t lose Boyata AND Jozo, at worst it will be one or the other. We’ll likely work on signing Roberts and working another deal for Eddy. Bain will be a free agent and we may well pick him up.

 

* * there are some mad * on here

The squad is still being turned overed, we’re not going to ship everyone out at once without replacements being bedded in or ready to step in.

With the January additions I imagine the 2 big ones we’ll lose in the summer are Jozo and Moussa. Then Armstrong, Lustig or Gamboa, Bitton and a goalkeeper. Plus all the players out on loan bar Christie and Benyu.

 

The italic hasn't worked then!!

 

Yes. I think he'll develop into a very good player.

 

Everything in a quote is italics, automatically.

 

Rodgers said we have 16 first team players availibe for selection last week. Due to injuries etc

If that’s the case I wouldn’t say it’s bloated. There is some dead wood we need to get rid of but think we have a standard sized squad

 

If the choice was between Roberts or Edouard who would choose?

Roberts for me every time.

 

Would be good to sign both,heres hoping the 24 million wil be put towards securing there services.

 

Don’t think it’s massively bloated but we do have some players who we could sell (if we could ever sell them - Ciftci as example) and we wouldn’t miss.
Some are coming to the end of their time here I think - Gordon, Lustig, Bitton.
We are still transitioning but I don’t think we will see a fire sale anytime soon.

 

When you look at who’s not favoured and who’s not got long left on their contracts then a good few could be leaving in the summer.

Gamboa Erik Allan Christie Ciftci could all leave tomorrow and wouldn’t be missed.

The likes of Boyata Rogic and Armstrong
will all be in their final year and should be sold.

 

Even if a player has been consistent for years,its all the same posters hitting the panic button,sell,sell,get tae * etc.

 

Most of them I mentioned are down to the last year of their deals. Moussa will move on, no chance of roberts for obvious reasons, eddy we won’t buy I wouldn’t imagine at £7m.

 

Roberts, without hesitation.