2023/24 Projects

It's been a WHILE since I've posted an article. My love for the sport waned for a few months, I won't lie, and "real life" has been more interesting, to be quite blunt. Also, my Orioles fandom is in elite mode once again, and the rebuild has been mostly successful. Anyway, Man City finally got over the hump, as I predicted, and wound up with a treble. That, plus the Saudi nonsense, has led me to rediscover my love for the game. Thus, I'm only going to care about teams that move me, hence why I'm examining which teams those may be this coming season.

Leverkusen

Diaby left to Villa, but Wirtz, the main man, is still around. Xabi Alonso will need his best player to perform to reach his goals this season. Goalkeeper is an area to upgrade, as Hradecky has begun to decline. At the time of writing, all of Hincapie, Kossounou, Tah and Tapsoba are still at the club. Plus, at wing back are Frimpong and the newly signed Grimaldo. The midfield has been bolstered by the arrival of Granit Xhaka from Arsenal, who will likely rotate with whoever stays from Andrich, Amiri, Demirbay, and Palacios. Jonas Hofmann is a valuable professional who joined from Gladbach; I expect him to play as a mezzala type or a straight up winger.

Basque sides

Alaves return to the big time, Osasuna in the Conference, La Real in Champions League with their mainly homegrown players, Athletic trying to finally do something. Of those four, let's go over the squads; strengths and "areas for improvement".

• Alaves- it'll be rough coming back up, given the financial issues these days for most Spanish clubs. The coach seems to rotate between his favored 4-3-3 and a more solid 4-4-2 in big games, so most Primera sides can expect the traditional Basque grit when visiting facing them.

• Athletic: Year two of Valverde being back. The strength of the club is unity, but at the same time, La Real also have a tight nit squad and play better football. It's that simple. They aren't really producing players; the most recent ones are Oihan Sancet and Nico Williams, and they've both been in the first team for a few years. There's the old guard plus Inaki and Muniain, and that's about it. Also, the style of football only really works against sides at their level or bigger. They can't finish to save their lives since Aduriz retired.

• Osasuna: the problem is loan players who left; aka Abde and Manu. Arnaiz joined from Leganes, and he can somewhat replace what Abde brought on the wing, while Catena joined from Rayo and adds CB depth. LB is still really light, depth wise, with only Juan Cruz at the club.

• La Real: David Silva tearing his ACL is the main issue. They already had European football, so that's not a huge shift. Granted, CL is THE big stage, but the revenue for even playing 6 group stage games will propel the club financially. I actually admire the way the club operates in the modern game. Even if they don't have the Basque only policy anymore, they prioritize the academy and give young players the platform to perform at a high level.

Bournemouth

Lots going on down there. You love to see it. There's the potential to re-establish the club as a midtable side in the league, which seemed a huge longshot going into last season. But then again, none of the promoted sides went down. Don't see that happening this season. The biggest signing might be Andoni Iraola as manager from Rayo Vallecano. He had them punching way above their weight in La Liga. Anyway, Milos Kerkez (LB/LWB) from AZ has all the potential in the world, and Justin Kluivert will be hoping to keep a place at a relatively high level after squandering a number of years after leaving Ajax. Hamed Traore signed permanently, while Jefferson Lerma left for Palace and Phillip Billing is rumored to leave as his contract expires next summer. The signings from last season will look to grab headlines, including Senesi and Zabarnyi at the back, as well as Outtara up front. I do think right back is a questionable position, and central midfield could be upgraded.

Arsenal

Pretty self-explanatory. Surprise leaders for most of last season before succumbing to the financial dopers with one of the GOAT coaches. Have added Havertz, Rice, Timber and kept guys like Saka and Saliba. Outgoing was Xhaka, as mentioned previously, and they'd like to sell Partey at some point, though that's uncertain at best.

Tottenham

New coach, some new players, some guys who are rightly departing. Personally, I see both sides of the Harry Kane debate. You don't sell your best player, but what are the odds of actually getting top 4 (5?) with him in the coming season, given how bad the team was last campaign? It's not like they've added much. Some loans became permanent (Kulusevski, Porro), Maddison, Salomon and Vicario signed, Udogie is finally with the team, and guys came back from loan (Lo Celso, Ndombele, Spence, Reguilon, Rodon, Gil). Overall, that means a lot of cash was spent and the squad isn't significantly improved. They still badly need to improve the defense. Two players strongly linked are Tapsoba and Van de Ven, both from the Bundesliga. They're good and will push for starting spots, plus it looks like Davinson Sanchez may leave after his poor spell at the club. If Kane can be sold to Bayern for a good fee and a decent younger replacement is found, that has to be done.

Atalanta

As usual, Gasperini is still the coach and players are being sold. Player wise, Carnesecchi has returned from a successful loan to compete with Musso in goal. Scalvini is still around at CB, as are Koopmeiners and Pasalic in the midfield. Not to mention De Roon and Ederson, so that part of the pitch is more than solid. Boga is apparently signing for Nice, while Hojlund is looking like a Man Utd player. The Colombian duo of Muriel and Zapata is still around, somehow, and they'll likely be signing El Bilal Toure from Almeria to replace Hojlund as their wonderkid striker. The question for me is consistency, as is the case every season. A club like this cannot maintain a high level because they constantly sell their good players. In the case of the Dane sensation, it's after one season. Kolasinac has joined to play LCB, while Bakker has joined to play LWB, which will address any depth issues the club had on that side.

Lazio

Champions League spot, but one of their best players (Milinkovic-Savic) is gone. They've signed Taty Castellanos from "City Group", as well as Cancellieri from Hellas Verona, who are annoyingly still in the league at the expense of Spezia. Sarri is an awesome coach without "super club" expectations, and the league is pretty open given the expected regression at Napoli with Kim and Spalletti leaving. The assumption is there will be at least one midfielder coming in, with Vecino having joined from Inter. UPDATE: A day after completing the previous segment, it looks increasingly likely that both Sow and a more advanced midfielder (Samardzic, Zalarayan, Kamada) will be joining to fill the void that SMS left. Hudson-Odoi, who broke out under Sarri at Chelsea, is also linked. IF all those were to come off, the squad would be impressive enough to at least get top four and make it out of an average Champions League group.

Milan

Taking the spot from Lazio, who I may or may not delete. I don't really like Pioli, but you gotta tune in when some of your favorite players join a historic club. I want to see if Loftus-Cheek is actually good. Christian Pulisic will be "allowed" to play where he wants. Luka Romero may or may not be a decent prospect, but he's been passed around a bit lately. Noah Okafor has his moments too. Reijnders is the one I'm keen to watch as Tonali was sold to Newcastle to balance the books. I'm curious how the leadership aspect will work, as well as becoming a unit with the amount of ins and outs. Zlatan is gone, as is the aforementioned Tonali. Higher up, club legend Maldini was let go. I've been playing around with the midfield and attack in another app, and there are a number of fun combinations, so I'll see what Pioli does.

RB Leipzig

I have a love-hate relationship with this club, for obvious reasons. It's great that they develop youth and play exciting football. At the same time, they epitomize what's wrong with modern football. They pretty much started the multi-club ownership, which I detest and every "purist" should as well. Anyway, Gvardiol is the big one in terms of leaving or not. If he stays, the team is pretty sick on paper. Nkunku is effectively being replaced by Xavi Simons and Benjamin Sesko, the former for his playmaking and the latter for his finishing. Laimer is being replaced by Christoph Baumgartner and Nicolas Seiwald, which is actually not bad considering Xaver Schlager also joined as a Sabitzer replacement. That's not a bad 3 for 2 trade, so to speak. Baumgartner does a bit of everything, literally, having played anywhere from DM to CF for Hoffenheim last season, as well as on the wing on rare occasions. I imagine new man Lois Openda will be the headliner, having joined from Lens after lighting up the French league last season. The hope, I'd imagine, is to have Werner play more off the wing and continue to phase Poulsen out, so it'll be Openda, Sesko and Silva tasked with scoring most of the goals. There's this young guy from PSG, Bitshiabu, who has the raw talent, but he'll likely be phased into the team.

Frankfurt

I liked what Adi Hutter did, and then Glasner won the Europa League. Now it's time to see who Dino Toppmoeller is. In terms of the team, Kevin Trapp is still one of the better Bundesliga keepers. Kamada and Ndicka leaving for nothing was not good business, but then again, they reached historic heights with the club, so it was worth it. Replacing them are Hugo Larsson and Willian Pacho, respectively, even if they aren't perfect like for likes. That said, the club has signed two forwards (Marmoush and Ngankam) from fellow German sides, and none have left so far. That would indicate a change of system, maybe to 3-5-2 or 4-4-2, given all of Alario, Borre, and Muani are still there. I'd expect at least one of the South Americans to leave, but even then that's 3 or 4 senior forwards for maybe two sport. If someone buys Kolo Muani, they'll have to replace him adequately or it'll be another disappointing season. Ebimbe also stayed; he can play either on the wing or at CM, having joined initially on loan from PSG. Unfortunately, I can see Lindstrom leaving. That would be a blow with Kamada leaving as well, but I just don't see how you can have 4 forwards plus a number of wingers/wing backs, on top of a solid core of central midfielders, and make that all work. Karim Onisiwo is the #1 similar player to RKM on fbref, and that would be such a Frankfurt type move. It would never happen, but Balogun would be perfect. UPDATE: as mentioned above in the Lazio bit, Sow looks like leaving. As I was saying towards the end there, the midfield and attack at Frankfurt are full for a team not in Europe, so the Sow news isn't too surprising. He's a big loss, but at hte same time they have Larsson to fill that squad role.