Five Players to Build Around
I could talk about how they probably need another starting-caliber winger, or how they really need to assess whether it’s worth bringing Pulido back at all – maybe a buyout, right? Or I could talk about the situation in goal, where John Pulskamp has struggled to replace the injured Melia, or how Kinda’s a question mark, or how neither fullback situation instills much confidence.
But the answer is center back. Andreu Fontas and Nicolas Isimat-Mirin are both injury-prone 30-somethings, and while both have had a good past few weeks, that’s an outlier when compared to their body of work over the past ~14 months or so.
It’s hard to imagine Sporting being appreciably better next year without getting those two spots right, so all their work this winter has to start there.
Part and parcel of that decision might be this next one: Do they bring Pulido back for his final year? He’s played just 33 games and scored just 14 goals since his arrival ahead of the 2020 season, and if Agada’s the first choice – which he absolutely has to be – then you’re committed to using a DP slot on a back-up for 2023, because there really is no place besides center forward in Vermes’ 4-3-3 for either guy.
A buy-out and reinvestment of that DP slot on an elite center back (not always the easiest thing to find, admittedly) makes quite a bit of sense from where I’m sitting.
