This reminds me of the glass half full or half empty analogy.

Sarri will have a whole preseason to drill our team and youngsters and it could turn out even better than bringing in new players.

The Pulisic signing will be like having a new player though he will likely miss some pre-season due to USA duty.

8 minutes ago, Sindre said:

I think whether we secure a CL-spot this season will have absolute massive impact. Because if we don't with things looking grim for the 19/20 season as well i don't see how we keep our few top players.
Hazard wil probably leave this summer and how long will Kante want to stay? One of the main reasons he joined us was to challenge for the CL.

And lets be honest, we are not among the big-boys in the transfermarket any longer so we will struggle to attract the best players that would be necessary to really compete again. Both in Europe and against City/Liverpool.

Hazard might be leaving with or without the ban. Kante leaving isnt even close to being a thing. He's only just signed a massive contract, why would we sell him? Could you really see him forcing a transfer? 

How many other players are indespensible? 

We still pay top wages here, and financially we more than compete with liverpool, it's just we haven't spent wisely enough. So if liverpool can push city in the league, and compete in Europe, and we continue to match them financially when the ban finishes, in terms of wages and transfer fees, what is stopping us building a team that can also compete for major honours? 

A one year ban doesn't significantly hurt us. We still have most our key players at good ages, and we have wealth of talent coming through. How many players have spurs bought in the last 12 months? I dont see them languishing in 10th place, because they already had a good team, as do we.

The only things that will stop us being a regular top 6 side, would be poor sporting decisions, and a serious lack of investment for a sustained period. 

So I'm not buying the doomsday scenario that the likes of the daily mail will spin. 

41 minutes ago, big blue said:

Hazard might be leaving with or without the ban. Kante leaving isnt even close to being a thing. He's only just signed a massive contract, why would we sell him? Could you really see him forcing a transfer? 

How many other players are indespensible? 

We still pay top wages here, and financially we more than compete with liverpool, it's just we haven't spent wisely enough. So if liverpool can push city in the league, and compete in Europe, and we continue to match them financially when the ban finishes, in terms of wages and transfer fees, what is stopping us building a team that can also compete for major honours? 

A one year ban doesn't significantly hurt us. We still have most our key players at good ages, and we have wealth of talent coming through. How many players have spurs bought in the last 12 months? I dont see them languishing in 10th place, because they already had a good team, as do we.

The only things that will stop us being a regular top 6 side, would be poor sporting decisions, and a serious lack of investment for a sustained period. 

So I'm not buying the doomsday scenario that the likes of the daily mail will spin. 

It’s a 2 window ban 

37 minutes ago, big blue said:

Hazard might be leaving with or without the ban. Kante leaving isnt even close to being a thing. He's only just signed a massive contract, why would we sell him? Could you really see him forcing a transfer? 

How many other players are indespensible? 

We still pay top wages here, and financially we more than compete with liverpool, it's just we haven't spent wisely enough. So if liverpool can push city in the league, and compete in Europe, and we continue to match them financially when the ban finishes, in terms of wages and transfer fees, what is stopping us building a team that can also compete for major honours? 

A one year ban doesn't significantly hurt us. We still have most our key players at good ages, and we have wealth of talent coming through. How many players have spurs bought in the last 12 months? I dont see them languishing in 10th place, because they already had a good team, as do we.

The only things that will stop us being a regular top 6 side, would be poor sporting decisions, and a serious lack of investment for a sustained period. 

So I'm not buying the doomsday scenario that the likes of the daily mail will spin. 

Agreed. In fact I am not sure where Hazard would go anyway. It looked like Real Madrid but now Jose is odds on to be next manager there do you really see that happening?

If anything the main decision we will have to make now is whether to break our policy offer some of the older players a one year contract extension? Or whether to let them go and trust in replacements from the academy. Pedro and Willian both have contracts through to 2020 but I suspect one of them will leave to make way for Pulisic, unless Hazard goes. Giroud and Luiz are probably the 2 that will be debated by the club. If we let Giroud leave we will only have Tammy and Bats left as strikers, unless I am forgetting somebody from the youth team. We have a few options in central defense but it might be best to give Luiz one more year and then bring in a replacement when our ban finishes.

4 minutes ago, WalterWhiteCFC said:

It’s a 2 window ban 

1 year equates to 2 windows. Splitting hairs.

2 hours ago, forbzy said:

I don't think we can do much about FIFA imposing the ban while we appeal. Yes the Spanish clubs were let off (surprise, surprise) but the rule is there. I think Blatter may have still been running things when the Spanish clubs got their special treatment. I honestly don't know what chance we have with our appeal either. The evidence suggests that we did break the rules. Do we risk a longer punishment if we lose an appeal? Maybe we will get it reduced to one window if we make a good case. 

This will now give the club a great opportunity to see how good the academy really is. They may as well give Sarri a chance now too as any high profile replacement will want their own signings.

Don't get me wrong, this could be a good thing in the hands of the right manager and DOF. 

My view is what is far more likely is for us to extend our 30 plus players and bring in some of the old loan army types. We're such a poorly run club that we will no doubt squander the only opportunity in this mess.

Reece James and Dujon Sterling won't be quite ready yet, need another League 1 loan. We better extend Zappacosta just in case....

35 minutes ago, big blue said:

1 year equates to 2 windows. Splitting hairs.

2 windows = 16 weeks 

5 minutes ago, Munkworth said:

2 windows = 16 weeks 

Spread out over 1 year

I admire the positive spin on here. You should all work for the government and sell May's Brexit deal.

A transfer ban is a positive thing because it will force us to have a preseason with our amazing youngsters learning to play Sarriball perfectly and make all the other clubs in world football realise that signing players is completely unnecessary because a full preseason with youth players is better than signing experienced  international players. City, PSG, Real, Liverpool, United, Bayern and even ourselves have been simply chucking money away all these years. This transfer ban makes us nailed on favourites for the league next season!!

5 minutes ago, Snedger said:

I admire the positive spin on here. You should all work for the government and sell May's Brexit deal.

A transfer ban is a positive thing because it will force us to have a preseason with our amazing youngsters learning to play Sarriball perfectly and make all the other clubs in world football realise that signing players is completely unnecessary because a full preseason with youth players is better than signing experienced  international players. City, PSG, Real, Liverpool, United, Bayern and even ourselves have been simply chucking money away all these years. This transfer ban makes us nailed on favourites for the league next season!!

In all honesty, I have been hiding my true fears on this. It's the timing of it all for me, I don't think the squad is in a good position for this transfer ban. We have players that are getting old, players with contracts running out, players that just aren't good enough, and I don't believe a bunch of our kids are going to become superstars. I have high hopes for Hudson-Odoi, but the kids in the Championship and the others we have here now have a very long way to go before I am convinced that they will ever be good enough.

Could you imagine losing Hazard and Hudson-Odoi, going into the new season with a rookie striker and Batshauyi, Pedro and Willian being a year older and probably even more inconsistent than they have been this season, and Pulisic, a player that is all potential and nothing else at the moment? It doesn't sound good at all. I also don't think we won't sell the likes of Hazard just because we have a transfer ban either. I fear that the club will want to cash in on these players either way. 

I don't think it's a terminal problem we face, but it has potential to be something that holds us back for a good few years. 

36 minutes ago, Snedger said:

I admire the positive spin on here. You should all work for the government and sell May's Brexit deal.

A transfer ban is a positive thing because it will force us to have a preseason with our amazing youngsters learning to play Sarriball perfectly and make all the other clubs in world football realise that signing players is completely unnecessary because a full preseason with youth players is better than signing experienced  international players. City, PSG, Real, Liverpool, United, Bayern and even ourselves have been simply chucking money away all these years. This transfer ban makes us nailed on favourites for the league next season!!

Well PSG certainly have cause they bottle it in Europe every single year even with their superstars.

Not saying we will win the league or anything but the squad we have is good enough to compete for top 4 and the cups. We just have to make do with what we have.

1 hour ago, big blue said:

1 year equates to 2 windows. Splitting hairs.

Sorry mate I understood it wrong as 2 summers not summer and jan so I thought it was even longer 

Lets consider the worst case. We lose Higuain and Kovacic at the end of the season. That now looks almost certain. Then we also lose the 4 players at end of contract. Lets assume here that they don't want to sign 1 year extensions which is very possible. So we also lose Giroud, Cahill, Caballero, and Luiz. 

Beyond that all of our other players are under contract until the end of the transfer ban. Yes we will probably get offers for CHO and Eden, maybe Willian and Pedro too. But we don't have to sell. My guess is if we find a way to get Eden to sign a new deal, then Willian and/or Pedro will be allowed to leave. Otherwise we will probably hold on to them. 

So with all that we could go into next season with a midfield similar to what we have now. Perhaps Mount replacing Kovacic in the squad. Defence would also be similar but we could bring Zouma, Tomori, and Reece James into the squad if needed. 

Wingers will depend on the Hazard decision but with Pulisic added.

Really the biggest concern is up front where we may have Tammy and Bats. Clearly Sarri doesn't value Bats so that leaves us looking precarious up front. Do we have any other options on loan or in the academy? I cannot think of any.

Either way if we go into next season with that squad I don't think we will be challenging for major trophies but I also don't think it will be disastrous. 

What I would like to see next season:

GK: Kepa, Willy, Bulka

Full backs: Azpi, James, Emerson, Ola Aina (is there any way out of the Torino option to buy?, if not then Jay Dasilva)

CB: Rudiger, Ampadu, Christensen, Luiz (too important to how Sarri wants to play)

Regista: Jorginho, Ampadu(?)

RCM: Kante, Barkley (I actually think he's done ok defensively the last few games. Works hard in closing down, gets stuck in)

LCM: RLC, Mount

RW: Pedro, Pulisic

LW: Hazard, CHO (Willian sold)

Striker: Giroud, Abraham, Bats (not much we can do here, Giroud can't score but links up well with the other attackers so I would keep him)

 

What we will probably see:

GK: Kepa, Willy, Bulka

Full backs: Azpi, Zappacosta, Emerson, Alonso

CB: Rudiger, Luiz, Christensen, Ampadu

Regista: Jorginho, Ampadu(?)

RCM: Kante, Barkley

LCM: RLC, Mount

RW: Pedro, Pulisic

LW: Hazard, Willian (CHO Leaves)

Striker: Giroud, Abraham

 

Our Worst Nightmare Scenario:

Same as above, except we lose both Hazard and CHO, Morata comes back to take Tammy's spot. Bakayoko backs up Kante and Barkley back to LCM

 

Edited March 9, 20197 yr by dustbin719

This is going to set us back considerably. If Real are really interested in Hazard, he will be gone. CHO too may be gone. Sarri doesn't seem to trust the youth and a good number of the first teamers are on the wrong side of 30, so will be in a dire situation. We are already struggling as it is, and this makes it even harder. This ban has been coming. The whole loan-army thing has been a shady practice and we will finally pay the price for it. 

If Eden wants to go he’ll go. It’s just a matter of how much we can get. 

The ball is in our court with Cho, We either make a commitment to playing him more or he’ll go. 

Need to sell one of Willian and Pedro, Pulisic and Cho in for either one  

As for Higuain, we have an option to keep him. 

If RLC’s health stays intact, then we really don’t need Kovacic. 

1 hour ago, teampjta said:

If Eden wants to go he’ll go. It’s just a matter of how much we can get. 

The ball is in our court with Cho, We either make a commitment to playing him more or he’ll go. 

Need to sell one of Willian and Pedro, Pulisic and Cho in for either one  

As for Higuain, we have an option to keep him. 

If RLC’s health stays intact, then we really don’t need Kovacic. 

We may have an option agreed for Higuain with Juve but we won't be able to act on it with the transfer ban in place. Same with Kovacic

16 minutes ago, forbzy said:

We may have an option agreed for Higuain with Juve but we won't be able to act on it with the transfer ban in place. Same with Kovacic

A loan isn’t a transfer so it’s possible we could extend it for a year perhaps 

We really don’t need Kovacic, if Ruben stays healthy he’ll more than compliment the midfield, with Barkley ad backup

7 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

Spread out over 1 year

365 days...

Sounds like an agenda to me, weren't Barca and Madrid supposed to get transfer bans? What happened to that bollocks? To not even give us another window is just sh*t, especially after they've just made the decision after the recent window has already closed. 

Watch City come under no scrutiny whatsoever. 

I think it boils down to the Higuain clause.

If we are still able to extend his loan then I think we will be relitevely okay next season if the worst comes to the worst (likely not challenge for the title but good enough for top four considering there's every chance we will make it this season and next they will be a year ahead in Sarri's training) but if we can't keep Higgy things will get tricky, Giroud isn't good enough to lead the line as number one and Bats is out of his depth at our level, we will literally have no other alternative but to promote Tammy and pray.

The most disappointing thing came out of this is we never got anything out of these youth players we allegedly 'illegally bought'. Traore has long gone, and won't be coming back even if we have a buy back clause. Even if we overturn the ban somehow, got look into how we buy and nurture youth players, because we aren't getting anything out of the investment. Sure we made some money out of selling players like Ake, but that's not what we had planned for.

I think Fifa’s decision to not give us the next window is an absolute joke. There’s no consistency with the decision here when Real and Barca both got the next window when they appealed. 

It’s taken me longer to understand matters but having now spoken to a football administrator his take on it is as follows

 

1) The appeal is a stand alone matter . In effect the descion of FIFA and the imposition of the two window ban are being appealed so that is in train

2) The application to suspend the two window ban  and even though it’s as a result of the findindings the  application to suspend the sanction is a separate matter to the appeal against the findings. The descion taken  to suspend or dismiss the application  will have been taken by the Appaels committee or even possibly by the appeal chairman alone. That process and descion has no other route within FIFA so FIFA statutes now state that CAS is the agreed route in respect of disputes so they probably will be asked by the club to rule on this issue alone and not the appeal at this stage. ( FIFA statute 58)

 

Edited March 9, 20197 yr by terraloon