Tick, tock, tick, tock . . .

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Brown Nose

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We've awarded some new contracts to older players over recent months. Jonny Evans is 33 today and has a new contract which will take him to 35.

Next week, Jamie Vardy turns 34 joining his old team mate Kasper Schmeichel who turned 34 a couple of months ago. Vardy was given a new deal in August taking him to 36. Schmeichel has a contract taking him to 36 too.

Three key and integral players all definite starters in our best team. All secured to deals to 2023. However, all are at that age where they will undoubtedly begin to deteriorate. They may lose pace or pick up more frequent injuries or just lose their sharpness. But no amount of time in cryotherapy treatment can prevent their ageing.

In addition to these three, we have Morgan turning 37 in a few days. He is now playing on memory and appears incapable of dong anything other than a few minutes due to his knackered back. Fuchs turns 35 in April and can give his all for a game or two but then he looks his age. The lesser spotted Jakupovic is 36.

That's 6 players over the age of 33 in the first team squad.

We can expect that Morgan, Fuchs and Jakupovic will cease their playing careers at the end of this season - for us at least. They have nothing much left to offer. But what of those three huge players for us?

As a goalkeeper, Schmeichel may be protected a little by his position but he is now the second oldest keeper playing regularly in the PL. Fewer old keepers seem to maintain themselves at the top level than they used to. 35 seems to be about the limit for most. Schmeichel turns 35 in November.

Evans has always been an injury prone player. He has also closing in on 100 caps for Northern Ireland and he takes himself off for international duty at every opportunity. How long can he keep on playing at the top level? Is it realistic to see him in the centre of our defence regularly for another two and a half seasons?

And then there is our legend, our talisman. The one who makes us capable of competing against anyone. He's already broken records as the oldest Golden Boot winner. But when and how does this end? He is already carrying a number of injuries to hip and groin that will never go away. He is already incapable of playing two games in quick succession. When does his age affect his every game? When does Vardy stop being the Vardy we know and love? If you take away his penalties, is he really as good this season as he was last season? I'm not sure he is.

Now we have the training ground in place, the expectation is that we will shortly go on to begin to develop the stadium. This will be a massive investment, dwarfing the £100m spent at Seagrave. Whilst we are investing off the pitch, we cannot be doing it on the pitch. Our approach has been to sell players and reinvest that money on young players with potential. However, we're now approaching a time bomb. It cost us about £5m to bring Schmeichel, Evans and Vardy into the club. Replacing them will cost us a fortune. If we are busy spending on infrastructure and hoping that the squad ticks over, we will slide backwards. Because let's be clear, when we don't have Vardy and Evans and Schmeichel at full power, we are not going to be competing in the top six.

I wonder whether we should suspend stadium development plans and focus instead on investing in the squad for a couple of seasons? That way, we have a better chance of managing through this time bomb and we can develop the stadium later. I think this summer is the time to attempt to bring in a new keeper and a new striker - probably at huge cost. If we just sell another asset (probably Tielemans) and reinvest that money, I don't think it will do the job as it has for the last few years.
 
Evans was a bit of a different signing to a lot of our other ones. We took advantage of a clause in his contract, but he wasn’t a young, up and coming player, like many of our main signings are. Maybe there are opportunities like him that we may look at, especially for the centre back and goalkeeper positions. It may not necessarily need to be a big ticket replacement.

Vardy is the more difficult one, obviously, but I’m not so sure that we will need three huge fee signings in order to replace them as a group.

There is also the possibility that they need replacing at different times, so the signings can be made over 2 or 3 summers, which would help spread things out.

Yes, these are important signings, but there’s so many variables that it’s hard to say exactly what needs to be spent when.
 
We've awarded some new contracts to older players over recent months. Jonny Evans is 33 today and has a new contract which will take him to 35.

Next week, Jamie Vardy turns 34 joining his old team mate Kasper Schmeichel who turned 34 a couple of months ago. Vardy was given a new deal in August taking him to 36. Schmeichel has a contract taking him to 36 too.

Three key and integral players all definite starters in our best team. All secured to deals to 2023. However, all are at that age where they will undoubtedly begin to deteriorate. They may lose pace or pick up more frequent injuries or just lose their sharpness. But no amount of time in cryotherapy treatment can prevent their ageing.

In addition to these three, we have Morgan turning 37 in a few days. He is now playing on memory and appears incapable of dong anything other than a few minutes due to his knackered back. Fuchs turns 35 in April and can give his all for a game or two but then he looks his age. The lesser spotted Jakupovic is 36.

That's 6 players over the age of 33 in the first team squad.

We can expect that Morgan, Fuchs and Jakupovic will cease their playing careers at the end of this season - for us at least. They have nothing much left to offer. But what of those three huge players for us?

As a goalkeeper, Schmeichel may be protected a little by his position but he is now the second oldest keeper playing regularly in the PL. Fewer old keepers seem to maintain themselves at the top level than they used to. 35 seems to be about the limit for most. Schmeichel turns 35 in November.

Evans has always been an injury prone player. He has also closing in on 100 caps for Northern Ireland and he takes himself off for international duty at every opportunity. How long can he keep on playing at the top level? Is it realistic to see him in the centre of our defence regularly for another two and a half seasons?

And then there is our legend, our talisman. The one who makes us capable of competing against anyone. He's already broken records as the oldest Golden Boot winner. But when and how does this end? He is already carrying a number of injuries to hip and groin that will never go away. He is already incapable of playing two games in quick succession. When does his age affect his every game? When does Vardy stop being the Vardy we know and love? If you take away his penalties, is he really as good this season as he was last season? I'm not sure he is.

Now we have the training ground in place, the expectation is that we will shortly go on to begin to develop the stadium. This will be a massive investment, dwarfing the £100m spent at Seagrave. Whilst we are investing off the pitch, we cannot be doing it on the pitch. Our approach has been to sell players and reinvest that money on young players with potential. However, we're now approaching a time bomb. It cost us about £5m to bring Schmeichel, Evans and Vardy into the club. Replacing them will cost us a fortune. If we are busy spending on infrastructure and hoping that the squad ticks over, we will slide backwards. Because let's be clear, when we don't have Vardy and Evans and Schmeichel at full power, we are not going to be competing in the top six.

I wonder whether we should suspend stadium development plans and focus instead on investing in the squad for a couple of seasons? That way, we have a better chance of managing through this time bomb and we can develop the stadium later. I think this summer is the time to attempt to bring in a new keeper and a new striker - probably at huge cost. If we just sell another asset (probably Tielemans) and reinvest that money, I don't think it will do the job as it has for the last few years.
Good point BN but, not wishing to be rude, you have posted a completely unbalanced article.
 
Our squad and indeed first team is packed with players in their early to mid 20’s, I can’t be arsed to work it out but I bet our squad is one of the youngest in the PL. I certainly accept that Vardy will be almost impossible to replace like for like but, perhaps, Barnes could fill the role, although not identically to JV.

He has most of the attributes, speed, skill and the goals are coming more regularly. Another 2 seasons playing alongside JV and with the right coaching,

I believe Barnes could be an exceptional striker and if we can find someone to play along side him we can negate the complete reliance on JV’s goals. If we can have 2 players sharing 30 goals it is much more sustainable than expecting one striker to score 20+ every season.
 
Will Evans be in the starting 11 when Fofana and Soyuncu are fully fit, more likely be on the bench.

There are plenty of GK's that could replace Schmeichel for not to big a fee and out of the 3 players you have mentioned he will probably play on the longest.

Vardy will be the most difficult but we have brought unknown players plenty of times over the years that have been cheap/free and have turned out excellent.

The money for stadium expansion won't come out of the transfer fund, Top will mortgage the season ticket income to pay for it.

I think the vision of our late Chairman will make sure the stadium expansion isn't delayed by not having a transfer fund.

We have shown in the past that selling a top player doesn't necessarily weaken our overall position. Evans cost £3 million yet we sold Maguire for £85 million.
Chilwell was sold for £50 million and we brought Castagne for £21 million a net profit of £111 million and the team has improved. I trust the club implicitly so aren't concerned
 
In terms of replacing key players, the most difficult will firstly be Vardy, followed by Schmeichel and then Evans. I would argue we are almost at the point where we could cope without Evans. How you replace the other two I have no idea.
 
Our squad and indeed first team is packed with players in their early to mid 20’s, I can’t be arsed to work it out but I bet our squad is one of the youngest in the PL. I certainly accept that Vardy will be almost impossible to replace like for like but, perhaps, Barnes could fill the role, although not identically to JV.

He has most of the attributes, speed, skill and the goals are coming more regularly. Another 2 seasons playing alongside JV and with the right coaching,

I believe Barnes could be an exceptional striker and if we can find someone to play along side him we can negate the complete reliance on JV’s goals. If we can have 2 players sharing 30 goals it is much more sustainable than expecting one striker to score 20+ every season.

We do have a lot of young players as well as several old players. Our squad is a bit unusual in having very few players between 25-33 which are supposed to be the peak years for players. Most squads have the bulk of their players at those ages.

You need a blend of experience and youth. We have that for now. But once the experience goes, we're left with a group of players that are not as good or are here to develop and get a mega move to a bigger club.

You put a huge amount of faith in Barnes. I see Barnes as a wide attacker who is best with some space to run into. It is a huge reach to see him being our main striker.

A good point is that we need the two support forwards to Vardy to deliver 20-25 goals or assists a season to begin to alleviate the importance of Vardy on our fate. Barnes is entering that territory. He has 5 goals and 1 assist from 1102 minutes in the PL. That's about one goal involvement every other match. I think he can get those numbers up a little more.

Only Maddison produces similar numbers so far this season, although he didn't last season.
 
We just need to find that Mahrez type player to play off the left wing.
If we had 3 other players regularly scoring and assisting them replacing Vardy isn't as urgent.
 
There are plenty of GK's that could replace Schmeichel for not to big a fee and out of the 3 players you have mentioned he will probably play on the longest.
Ooo please name some keepers we could sign that are as good as Schmeichel and what you expect we would pay for them.

Schmeichel has been one of the top keepers in the league for years. Any replacement we get will not be as good as him.
 
You put a huge amount of faith in Barnes. I see Barnes as a wide attacker who is best with some space to run into. It is a huge reach to see him being our main striker.
Didn't I read that he has scored as many not-from-the-penalty-spot goals as Vardy this season?
 
Ooo please name some keepers we could sign that are as good as Schmeichel and what you expect we would pay for them.

Schmeichel has been one of the top keepers in the league for years. Any replacement we get will not be as good as him.
Rab Douglas and Kevin Pressman are both free and available.
 
Ooo please name some keepers we could sign that are as good as Schmeichel and what you expect we would pay for them.

Schmeichel has been one of the top keepers in the league for years. Any replacement we get will not be as good as him.
Schmeichel has turned into a fantastic GK for us but when we signed him it was a punt on a player that hadn't settled at a club.
Anyway I'd be happy if we signed one of these as his replacement
Gianluigi Donnarumma on a free from AC Milan in 2021
Nick Pope from Burnley got 2 years left to run on his contract.
Alex McCarthy from Southampton also has 2 years left
Maarten Vandevoordt from Genk contract expires in 2023
Adrian from Liverpool out of contract 2021

2 of these are free transfers another 2 will have 1 year left from next season.
 
Schmeichel has turned into a fantastic GK for us but when we signed him it was a punt on a player that hadn't settled at a club.
Anyway I'd be happy if we signed one of these as his replacement
Gianluigi Donnarumma on a free from AC Milan in 2021
Nick Pope from Burnley got 2 years left to run on his contract.
Alex McCarthy from Southampton also has 2 years left
Maarten Vandevoordt from Genk contract expires in 2023
Adrian from Liverpool out of contract 2021

2 of these are free transfers another 2 will have 1 year left from next season.
I mean I don’t know where to begin with this.

I’m not sure what’s more laughable - the thought of Donnarumma coming to us when he’ll have the pick of all the top sides in Europe, or the fact that you think Adrian is good enough to replace Schmeichel.
 
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