Taking the rest of the future summer business out of the equation (and I feel like we will definitely bring in at least one more attacking signing, likely Eze or a LW like Rodrygo), I feel like we have done everything we need to in order to completely fill out a title contending squad this summer. We have depth in every position and are now covered even if essential players like Saka, Odegaard or Saliba were to get hurt. I do think that we will find out quickly that Zubimendi is probably the one player where we don't necessarily have adequate cover just in terms of what he can do to our team so if he were to go out for any extended period of time, it would likely require a complete change in tactics.
Now that we have a great squad with high level cover in basically every position, I want to see our future recruitment target two key areas:
- high potential youth/academy signings
- 1-2 world class mavericks per window
We have seen the impact of our top end talent at Hale End and what it can do to our club in terms of saving money in recruitment of established players. I would like to see us continue to pump talent into that pipeline the way that City and Chelsea have done over the last 5 or so years. This can be both with an eye towards a route to the first team but also to sell players for high fees with potential buybacks or sell on clauses. We need to be a better selling club but part of that is having high potential players that we are willing to sell. Not everyone is going to have a perfect pathway to the first team like we have seen with MLS, Nwaneri and Dowman. We need to be okay with selling some of these talents and getting good fees like we've seen Chelsea/City/Liverpool do this summer and not letting them simply leave for free or refuse a pro contract. Relatedly, I would like to see us get better at finding good loan opportunities for fringe youth players so we can avoid scenarios like Hutchinson leaving for pocket litter and then getting sold by Chelsea for 20m a year later.
Secondly, since our squad baseline is now at a proper level, we need to continually be looking to improve the squad by targeting 1-2 world class mavericks every window. With the exception of Saka, Saliba and maybe Rice, I don't think we should view any player as irreplaceable. We need to put ourselves in the position that Liverpool has done this summer where we can look to add a Wirtz/Isak level of talent on top of an awesome squad without worrying about where they may play or who's playing time they may impact. I trust Arteta to be able to build tactics that will stay on the cutting edge of football so even if its a tactical shift to bring in a game breaker, I want us to be in the discussion for players like Musiala, Doue, Barcola, etc. I'm not going to target individual players yet as I want to see how the squad performs this year (i.e. does Odegaard's performance rebound to previous years? What players take a step up this year? What players should we look to improve on?). We just need to be ruthless in both our recruitment and selling to avoid complacency and given Berta's track record at Atletico, I think we will be.
If we can continue to freshen the squad each summer with 1-2 world class players and a handful of top prospects both at the academy level and even 1-2 that are fringe first team players, we should be able to sustain our recent performance levels while finding areas to level up. I will even be okay with big sales as long as they are on our terms and at or above market values (i.e. selling someone like Gabriel or Saliba for 100/150m+ as long as we have future proofed our CB's with Mosquera, Jacquet, etc.) and that money gets redirected at another world class talent.
