CammyF

The issue with Ridvan is, as he has shown, he isn't reliable enough and appears to be injury prone and takes time to recover. Clement mentioned his latest injury wasn't "major" but he is yet to even make the bench, nevermind start. Davies in my opinion is a good footballer player, but not strong enough for the Scottish game. Balogun is a squad player, no more no less and is out of contract and it would be criminal to give him a contract extension.

So we agree we have a massive rebuilding challange ahead. How it's funded is a major concern / question as our sellable assets are at a bare minimum. Whilst Butland may be over-rated he'd get us a decent fee / profit but other than a Saudi club buying Tav, we're not getting much from player "trading". We are obliged to pay £4M for Diomonde so that maybe a significant chunk of our transfer budget. I'd look at getting Sima and Cortes back on loan as I don't think we'll be able to afford to buy them this close-season (unless we win the league).

We will, but how else can we fund the required changes? Nobody else will command a decent transfer fee. If we don't win the league, we will struggle to make the CL so we need to generate funds somehow.

So given the above criteria, who deserves to stay? Who do does the manager build his squad around? Who, over the last 2-3 years have shown the required level of performance and "acceptable" failings to suggest they are the correct players to turn us from losers into winners?

No, you were saying benching them would force them to move on. They aren't good enough, but neither are the vast majority of our players, but we are stuck with most of them unless we can find buyers. By definition, any player who has been here for 2 or 3 seasons (or more) are perennial losers, so what sets Tav, Goldson and Lundstram apart from the rest?

But there are varying degrees of garbage and Leon King is several degrees worse than those you mentioned (and isn't a right back or midfield player). Unfortunately, our "youth" system isn't going to be our saviour any time in the near to mid-term We'll continue to play second fiddle to Celtic as long as we have inferior players, inferior player trading model and inferior profit margin. Whilst they have regressed on the park which allowed us to briefly dream of being champions, they are miles ahead of us in all things that matter.

Aye for half their wages - dream on.

And how's that gonna help move things along? They'll still get paid for sitting on the bench which is actually a worse situation for us. Neither will take a pay-cut to move away.

There are apparently two Saudi clubs willing to pay this fee for Tav. However, Tav is reluctant to uproot his family. Time will tell.

Roofe isn't match fit, as he demonstrated in his cameo today. He hardly moved and contributed nothing. A fit and firing Roofe would be welcome, but it looks like he is broken and thankfully will move on in the summer. Clement is showing the same reluctance to learn from his mistakes as his predecessors did.

But the issue is, both are under contract. If they aren't playing, they need to be off the wage bill. Two ways that happens, someone buys them, or we pay them off. Can't see either scenario panning out unless the Tav to Saudi rumours are true. If we don't win the league, the transfer budget will be minimal and only topped up by selling players. £6M for Tav if the Saudi rumours develop into firm bids, couple of million for Ridvan to Turkey, same with Hagi and Butland will add another £6-£8M (no way we'll get more for him). So that's another circa £15M and some wages freed up when you add in the out of contract players.

Won't make any difference in the title run in. Their biggest challange is to move players on.

Silva was brought in to score goals, and was a player our management / footballing team knew and assumed trusted. It hasn't worked out, mainly due to Clement playing Silva wide more often than not. Sima and Dessers have decent numbers for the season, Sima's injury derailed his season and same.can be said for Danilo.

It could happen, but what options are available? Sterling for Tav is the most obvious but many think Sterling is better deployed in midfield. So if not Sterling, who plays right back? The options to replace Goldson (and Souttar) are Balogun, Davies or King. Neither of those 3 have shown anything to suggest they'd improve our defence. At left back, Borna has checked out, Yilmaz appears to still be injured (again), so that leaves Yfeko. Lundstrum has carried our midfield for the majority of the season but is struggling at the moment. It appears that Clement doesn't rate Raskin. Jack is permanently injured, Diomande is currently injured and Sterling is filling in for the entire back four 😀 Whilst we have a huge squad on paper, it's stretched due to injuries and loss of form.

Reading the thread it would appear that we are in agreement that we have defenders who can't defend, midfielders who can't midfield and strikers who can't strike and I'd argue that recently we have a keeper who can't keep and a manager who can't manage.......But apart from that, we're fine...... And to think a few short weeks ago we were in Europe, in pole position in the league and looking forward to a treble.

I didn't say we needed to rebuild the entire squad but I think we do. It's been said by a few we need to replace Tav, Goldson and Lundstram as a matter of urgency. Only one is out of contract in the summer. So how do we get rid or Tav and Goldson? If nobody wants to buy them, can we afford to have two of our highest earners warming the bench? We certainly can't afford to "pay them off" . The situation we are currently in is a direct result of us standing still after winning 55. It appears to be a heavy price to pay.

We have won only 2 of our last 7 games - honeymoon period is well and truly over. Hardly the form of a team fighting for a league title.

So the manager is to blame as he didn't bring in the correct loan players?

They might, but that doesn't help us replace them.

This argument baffles me - it's a deflection away from what the real issue is. All OF defeats and lack off success is down to a select few players? Or is it a collective failure?

But we have- Sterling, Diomande, Raskin, Yimaz Davies, Balogun name a few. Maybe the players bought to replace them haven't been good enough (I'd argue they haven't been)

He would / might have, but how would we have paid for him? We didn't have the money to buy Shankland in January

And we got one on loan.

What do you think out transfer budget will be in the summer? Seriously, how much money will Clement have to rebuild the entire defence and forward line?

But who do you replace them with? Take the back 4 as an example - none of them up to the job. Would a back 4 of Sterling, King, Balogun and Yfeko win you the league?