I'm not panicking... I just don't understand how there is nothing? No info? No rumours with any sort of substance other that Grealish.
Just curious but how do you quantify that we will be just fine? I'm not saying its gonna be a disaster at all, just don't see how we are now going to be able to capitalise the ridiculously good position we have for ourselves in. That's my worry to.be honest. I can deal with not winning anything, finishing 6th, being Spursy. But it just seems like we have a chance of not letting history repeat itself and becoming a giant of a club who dominates for a long long while.
The way I quantify it (and this may prove to be wrong) is that I am a massive advocate for getting as many games into a particular group as possible (ergo, by having them play together as often as is practical). I am a big believer that a well-drilled team should be better than the sum of it's parts and when you make sweeping changes the points dropped whilst bedding in new players are very difficult to recover. I don't care who it is, whether it is Messi, Ronaldo or a 22 year old Pele (well maybe not Pele, he was the greatest that there will ever be),I have seen little evidence that teams instantly improve when you add a superstar or two. It takes time for new players to become familiar with those that are already there...and vice-versa.
I understand the need for squad rotation and depth to cover the stupid number of games and competitions that we are in but how do we know, for example that if we were to spend a fortune on Gareth Bale that his style would be cohesive with what we have currently? If we are going to speculate, then I would rather we speculate within our means.
I guess this perspective comes from a lifetime of watching my own national sport/competition, the AFL which has a salary cap. This cap forces teams to develop their youth and less expensive players. History in this competition at least shows that the best teams have relied on the best balance of players and that it is more often that not the "bottom" few players on the list that determine the success or failure of their team and not the superstars. In 2013 the best team in the AFL (Sydney) convinced the best player in 30 years to defect from the 2nd best team in the AFL (Hawthorn),signing him to the biggest contract in AFL history. The net result of this is that Hawthorn went on to win the next 3 titles and Sydney have won nothing since. This is only one example of where spending stupid money has come to nothing.
I love the way that Daniel Levy goes about it. I do not believe the long held capitalist notion that something is worth as much as someone is prepared to pay for it. That is a nonsense. Neymar is not worth double or even triple what Christian Eriksen is worth. I just do not believe in paying more than a player is realistically worth and when we inevitably win something I want to be proud of the idea that we haven't gone down the City/United/Chelsea route and simply stockpiled players at silly money to lift trophies. Leicester's recent title win has more merit than every other title won in the last decade. Combined.
So, when I say that we will be just fine I am looking at the trajectory of the club, from where we were a decade ago to where we are now and more importantly, where we are heading. We might struggle for the first couple of months given the lack of preparation and new stadium which will take our players some months to get used to but we will be just fine.
Cheers.