As we currently stand


Richie K

Striker
Are we stronger or weaker than last season?

Amad obviously a big miss and not having a Simms or Stewart up front makes us a bit one dimensional at the minute.

Look alike we have a bit more strength in depth in other areas though, and the youngsters like Hume, Neil etc will be a lot stronger than they were at this time last year.

Overall, we seem to look like a top 8 team, but a couple of good acquisitions up front and we could be looking at a comfortable top 6 finish. Unfortunately, we may have to wait until late August to get additional incomings on loan from the prem.
 
Removing Amad and Stewart makes us weaker than we were at certain points last season when both were available (admittedly that wasn't very much). The fact we still are operating with one, not-fully fit striker despite seemingly considerable effort from the club is now bordering the ridiculous with 13 days to go until kick-off.
 
We are stronger than we were at THIS POINT last season. Imo.

Obviously we are weaker at centre forward but we are stronger in every other position in my opinion.

If only because a lot of our young players will be going into the season with a lot more confidence
Confidence and experience. A lot of out young players have now had a season/half season playing well at Championship level. I thinknthe squad depth is going to be better this year, and we have a more settled formation/style of play.
 
Depends on what part of the season I guess, in general I'd say stronger given the younger lads are better players and we have Ekwah.
Without Amad, Simms and Stewarts 31 goals we're weaker, but this can be rectified with a couple of signings.

The rest of the squad I'd say is stronger.
 
The honest answer is we don’t know.

This isn’t about replacing Amad like for like. It’s about the wider team.

Two big factors. How good are the new young lads. And two, how much have the rest of the young team progressed.

Impossible to say in my opinion because we are building around young unproven players. Ie Semedo could be a 30 goal a season striker. Bellingham could be a midfield dynamo. Our new centre backs could both be better then Ballard.

We are not signing 30 year olds that it’s easy to assess their impact. The new lads and the likes of Hume, Ba, Rigg, Lichaj etc… are largely an unknown quantity how they will perform this year.
 
Its difficult to tell. Lihadji was brought in as a replacement for Amad and we don't know how that will pan out (I wait for people to tell me that Lihadji plays in a different position to Amad). What people forget is that Amad came to us last year with less experience than Lihadji has. He didn't pull up trees at Rangers and had played very little football. Similarly, at the start of last season no one was predicting how good Hume would be given he struggled a bit in L1. A lot depends on how the likes of Lihadji, Ba and Bennette come on in their second season with us.
 

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