GooneriC wrote:

Dzeko is very good.

I love him as a player. He was very inconsistent for city though. Some days he'd be scoring worldies other days he couldn't finish his dinner.

Lassana Diarra career is getting weirder and weirder. PSG is signing him from Al Jazira where he has been a complete flop.

Lassana Diarra? i didnt realize he was even still playing

Lol Liverpool want Lemar but are reluctant to pay the £90m - our bid made Monaco hold tight

Glad weren’t not in for him

Laporte is going to be a really good signing for city, wish we were in for him.

And worse, it means we don't have any competition for Evans.

We had 9 (out of the 8 required) registered for the squad at the start of the season, we've lost Walcott and Coq so we're down to 7 now (and one of them is Chuba Akpom) so we are one short. That being said, Sanchez is gone while Mert and Debuchy will probably join him in the summer if not now, possibly Giroud too, so I don't think the HG status issue is that desperate. The likes of AMN and Nelson can be promoted if need be.

Don't we already have more than 8 HG players?

HG (9):
Bellerin, AMN, Holding, Chambers, Ramsey, Wilshere, Welbeck, Iwobi, Nelson

Non-HG (16):
cech, ospina, debuchy, kos, mustafi, per, kola, nacho,
xhaka, elneny, cazorla, mkhi, ozil,
giroud, laca, auba

That brings us up to the full 25 man squad. Once Debuchy, Per, and Cazorla move on we'll have 3 free non-HG places. We could also drop AMN or Nelson to free up an extra squad space, I think that they're young enough to not need to be registered.

Klaus wrote:

You don't technically need to have 8 players in the squad who are homegrown though; you just can't fill those places with non-homegrown players. The rule is effectively in place to limit the number of non-homegrown players in any given squad to 17.

Good point about Merte and Debuchy though. Cazorla's going too, so there should be some non-homegrown squad places available then even if we don't find any homegrown players.

I've been saying it for years, stop signing shitty squad fillers and just let the actual HG players take those spots. It will cost less and free up spaces for critical signings.

I really hope its the start of a new direction on player recruitment and retention. I'm not saying its easy to find the right balance but we've had it the wrong way for so long. We need to try something different.

Irish gunner wrote:

Don't we already have more than 8 HG players?

HG (9):
Bellerin, AMN, Holding, Chambers, Ramsey, Wilshere, Welbeck, Iwobi, Nelson

Non-HG (16):
cech, ospina, debuchy, kos, mustafi, per, kola, nacho,
xhaka, elneny, cazorla, mkhi, ozil,
giroud, laca, auba

That brings us up to the full 25 man squad. Once Debuchy, Per, and Cazorla move on we'll have 3 free non-HG places. We could also drop AMN or Nelson to free up an extra squad space, I think that they're young enough to not need to be registered.

Iwobi, Nelson and AMN do not need to be added to the list as they are u21 for the purposes of HG status. Thus they could be promoted to fill the HG numberd but it is not necessary as they are free to play for us regardless.

When they reach 21 they will need to be registered as part of the 25 man squad and will then not reduce the non HG spots available.

We started the season with the following as our HG players over 21 that were needed to be registered to be able to play for us.

Akpom
Bellerin
Chambers
Coquelin
Holding
Macey
Ramsey
Walcott
Welbeck
Wilshere

With Walcott and Coquelin gone we are now down to 8 however these numbers do not need to be filled. It just prevents you from adding more than 17 non HG players to the 25 man squad. It may become an issue if Akpom, Ramsey, Wilshere and Welbeck leave meaning we'd have a squad of 15 non HG players whilst being able to replace those 4 with only 1 or possibly 2 non HG players if Aubameyang joins. Effectively leaving us with 15 (possibly 16 with Aubameyang) non HG players with 4 HG players over the age of 21 (again, those u21 do not need to be registered).

Our non HG are as follows

Cech
Debuchy
Elneny
Giroud
Iliev
Kolasinac
Koscielny
Lacazette
Mertesacker
Monreal
Mustafi
Ospina
Ozil
Mikhitarian
Xhaka

Out of the 15 non HG players we have we have Mert definitely leaving in the summer. If Debuchy, one of Ospina and Iliev, and also Cazorla and possibly Elneny leave that would free up another 4 or 5 non HG spots in the squad so all this should not be an issue.

Edit: @IG, wasn't fast enough with my response lol. Klaus and Qwiss covered most of the points.

They don't need to be registered, but I think IG is just saying that we don't need Evans for the purpose of filling up the HG quota.

That I am in full agreement with.

Quincy Abeyie wrote:

but I think IG is just saying that we don't need Evans

There, fixed for ya..   lol

That's what I first wrote actually, before editing in the last part. Didn't want to put words in his mouth.