The Small Squad - Myth?

[Hoganstolemywife]

Don't know about anyone else but much as Collins and Guedes are two solid additions we are not really dealing with our pitifully small squad are we?

I saw this comment in another thread and it got me thinking about the perceived small squad that we have. Compared against Man City:

Man City (18)
Ederson
Ortega
Walker
Stones
Dias
Phillips
Ake
Cancelo
Gundogan
Haaland
Grealish
Laporte
Rodri
De Bruyne
Alvarez
Silva
Mahrez
Foden

Wolves (20)
Sa
Sarkic
Ait-Nouri
Collins
Boly
Jonny
Semedo
Kilman
Toti
Neves
MGW
Moutinho
Dendoncker
Neto
Jimenez
Podence
Hwang
Chiquinho
Guedes
Traore

Man City also have the likes of Delap & Cole Palmer who have made appearances, whereas we have Mosquera, Cundle, Ronan (I suppose!) and Campbell.

I'm sure Man City have some more excellent youngsters too.

So....we have a bigger squad than Man City. Both clubs have a number of loanees out at the moment and both clubs are still supposedly looking at expanding their squad.

A few takeaways:
- Man City have a much better squad than us
- Man City have a much more balanced squad than us
- We have been unlucky and have a number of injuries, whereas Man City don't. We clearly need to factor this in.
- Our bench against Leeds was awful

So....do we have a small squad, or is it just imbalanced and distorted by injuries? 21 first teamers doesn't seem small! (Perhaps 20 if we class Mosquera as youth)

 

[Streathamwolf]

Interesting question Hogan. It is possible to argue that Mosquera and Toti are not quite ready - I wouldn't agree re Toti - but the real problem is balance, as you say. Surprised at the size of the City squad, not missed anyone or are they part way through a transition?

 

[Ragnar]

You've missed Stones and Ortega for City which takes it to 20.


A couple of other points;

- The Youngsters City have at their disposal are miles ahead of what we have to use if we ever needed to dip into the under 23s for a player.

- The issue with Wolves' squad has never been about total number of players it's the fact that some position groups are almost overly well stocked, whilst in others we are 1 injury away from having to use someone not at PL level..

As you said further down, It's always been about squad balance rather than pure numbers.

 

[Hoganstolemywife]

Interesting question Hogan. It is possible to argue that Mosquera and Toti are not quite ready - I wouldn't agree re Toti - but the real problem is balance, as you say. Surprised at the size of the City squad, not missed anyone or are they part way through a transition?

I was too!

Manchester City Squad Players

Man City Men's, Women's, EDS and Academy squad players. Get the latest news, videos and social media for all the City roster.

www.google.com

I've missed out their 3rd goalie because I don't think they're particularly relevant in squad depth conversations. You're right about Mosquera, iirc he hasn't played a minute of league football so it's perhaps wrong to include him.

I've also missed out Mendy, which theoretically could change at any time, but they miss him out from their website too.

Might be worth doing a comparison with a few more teams.

It's ingrained in my head that Wolves have a small squad but perhaps we....just don't!

 

[Hoganstolemywife]

You've missed Stones and Ortega for City which takes it to 20.


A couple of other points;

- The Youngsters City have at their disposal are miles ahead of what we have to use if we ever needed to dip into the under 23s for a player.

- The issue with Wolves' squad has never been about total number of players it's the fact that some position groups are almost overly well stocked, whilst in others we are 1 injury away from having to use someone not at PL level..

As you said further down, It's always been about squad balance rather than pure numbers.

Oops, I'll put in Stones. Says it all about the calibre of player available to Man City that I can miss out a world class CB and not notice

Good point about the u23s And, yes, our imbalance is clear. An injury to Kilman and we have a number of ready made replacements. An injury to Neves and we get out the prayer mats.

Ill replace Carson with Ortega. Seems a bit disingenuous to include 3rd choice keepers!

 

[Streathamwolf]

There are quite a few ingrained ideas quoted as gospel on here aren't there. We are all guilty of that - I could probably find 10 misquotes of Shi et al in about 5 minutes! If they balance the squad we could have an exciting season.

 

[Tring Wolf]

It’s the latter. If you’re wanting to play a variation of 4-3-3, but only have three senior midfielders then you’re obviously going to be struggling when one of those inevitably get injured (especially when one is in his mid-30’s). I personally don’t see Mosquera and possibly even Toti as ready yet but I’m probably in a minority there.

The attacking options look really tasty. Just lacking a recognised Number 9 as competition / cover for Raul. And we’ve already had one season where we saw the folly of that exposed, which is why people were a bit upset behind the timing of the Fabio loan (I’d have personally started him this season but again accept I’m in the minority there).

We’ve also obviously been hugely unlucky with a number of career-threatening injuries and a couple of players who have picked up recurring muscle strains.

The good thing is the club can see the areas where we are imbalanced and are making steps to address them with quality additions. It shouldn’t have got to the stage where we fielded the bench we did at Leeds but I reckon we’ll be in a position by the end of the window where we’ll be pretty pleased with the size and quality of the squad. Just hoping we haven’t got ourselves into a bit of trouble by the time the window shuts (those next 4 games after it are horrific).

 

[Hoganstolemywife]

There are quite a few ingrained ideas quoted as gospel on here aren't there. We are all guilty of that - I could probably find 10 misquotes of Shi et al in about 5 minutes! If they balance the squad we could have an exciting season.

Yes...I was only doing this as a brief exercise to see where man city had cover where we don't but, alas, it was the other way round.

Balance is definitely the key word.

 

[Bawtry Wolf]

I saw this comment in another thread and it got me thinking about the perceived small squad that we have. Compared against Man City:

Man City (17)
Ederson
Carson
Walker
Dias
Phillips
Ake
Cancelo
Gundogan
Haaland
Grealish
Laporte
Rodri
De Bruyne
Alvarez
Silva
Mahrez
Foden

Wolves (21)
Sa
Sarkic
Ait-Nouri
Collins
Boly
Mosquera
Jonny
Semedo
Kilman
Toti
Neves
MGW
Moutinho
Dendoncker
Neto
Jimenez
Podence
Hwang
Chiquinho
Guedes
Traore

Man City also have the likes of Delap & Cole Palmer who have made appearances, whereas we have Cundle, Ronan (I suppose!) and Campbell.

So....we have a bigger squad than Man City. Significantly(!) Both clubs have a number of loanees out at the moment and both clubs are still supposedly looking at expanding their squad.

A few takeaways:
- Man City have a much better squad than us
- Man City have a much more balanced squad than us
- We have been unlucky and have a number of injuries, whereas Man City don't. We clearly need to factor this in.
- Our bench against Leeds was awful

So....do we have a small squad, or is it just imbalanced and distorted by injuries? 21 first teamers doesn't seem small! (Perhaps 20 if we class Mosquera as youth)

I picked this up too as Man City’s squad size was discussed on 5 live on Monday. I think your point on the unbalanced squad is well made. We had a squad that was originally designed to play in one way and that drove recruitment. Injuries haven’t helped either. Also we loan out a lot of our U23s to get league experience which means that there is a bigger gulf between first team squad and 23s at the club. This is partly due to us not being in as many competitions as City to allow us to bed in those 23s.

 

[Hoganstolemywife]

It’s the latter. If you’re wanting to play a variation of 4-3-3, but only have three senior midfielders then you’re obviously going to be struggling when one of those inevitably get injured (especially when one is in his mid-30’s). I personally don’t see Mosquera and possibly even Toti as ready yet but I’m probably in a minority there.

The attacking options look really tasty. Just lacking a recognised Number 9 as competition / cover for Raul. And we’ve already had one season where we saw the folly of that exposed, which is why people were a bit upset behind the timing of the Fabio loan (I’d have personally started him this season but again accept I’m in the minority there).

We’ve also obviously been hugely unlucky with a number of career-threatening injuries and a couple of players who have picked up recurring muscle strains.

The good thing is the club can see the areas where we are imbalanced and are making steps to address them with quality additions. It shouldn’t have got to the stage where we fielded the bench we did at Leeds but I reckon we’ll be in a position by the end of the window where we’ll be pretty pleased with the size and quality of the squad. Just hoping we haven’t got ourselves into a bit of trouble by the time the window shuts (those next 4 games after it are horrific).

You're right about Mosquera. I'll remove him. I share your sentiment about Toti but the fact that he's started a number of games suggests Bruno rates him.

 

[Chris H]

You've missed Stones and Ortega for City which takes it to 20.


A couple of other points;

- The Youngsters City have at their disposal are miles ahead of what we have to use if we ever needed to dip into the under 23s for a player.

- The issue with Wolves' squad has never been about total number of players it's the fact that some position groups are almost overly well stocked, whilst in others we are 1 injury away from having to use someone not at PL level..

As you said further down, It's always been about squad balance rather than pure numbers.

Whilst I don’t necessarily disagree with your points I would counter that

- their youngsters need to be at a higher level as they’re aiming much higher than us so it’s still relative

- they’ve got two fit senior full backs (unless I’ve forgotten someone) and semi regularly have to field Ake at LB and I’m fairly sure Laporte has filled in there too.

I think the point is we’re very insular looking at our squad compared to others, we’ll pick an area where one club is stronger than us then pick another area where another club is stronger than us. The reality is most squads in the league are short somewhere because, generally, if you’re working with a set amount of funds you’ll likely take a chance on being one short in a few places to have better quality over quantity and accept that if you get injuries there you’ll need to make do with someone out of position.

Liverpool are the same, how often has Milner played full back, Gomez gets played at RB (okay he can do it but he’s a CB naturally), we just obsess with our own squad and ignore others deficiencies because they aren’t our problem.

As it stands our squad isn’t far off in numbers, I’d say Gomes is our Ake / Gomez who can cover full back so we’re adequate there and we’ve got forwards if not strikers so are adequate there too. Obviously you’d like more than adequate but I’d rather 14/15 top players and risk being a bit light sometimes than 19/20 average players and never struggle for cover but always struggle for quality.

Obviously we need a CM still, but even that that’d likely be with one of Cundle or Ronan going out as a result I’d imagine.

 

[TheConcourse]

I saw this comment in another thread and it got me thinking about the perceived small squad that we have. Compared against Man City:

Man City (18)
Ederson
Ortega
Walker
Stones
Dias
Phillips
Ake
Cancelo
Gundogan
Haaland
Grealish
Laporte
Rodri
De Bruyne
Alvarez
Silva
Mahrez
Foden

Wolves (20)
Sa
Sarkic
Ait-Nouri
Collins
Boly
Jonny
Semedo
Kilman
Toti
Neves
MGW
Moutinho
Dendoncker
Neto
Jimenez
Podence
Hwang
Chiquinho
Guedes
Traore

Man City also have the likes of Delap & Cole Palmer who have made appearances, whereas we have Mosquera, Cundle, Ronan (I suppose!) and Campbell.

I'm sure Man City have some more excellent youngsters too.

So....we have a bigger squad than Man City. Both clubs have a number of loanees out at the moment and both clubs are still supposedly looking at expanding their squad.

A few takeaways:
- Man City have a much better squad than us
- Man City have a much more balanced squad than us
- We have been unlucky and have a number of injuries, whereas Man City don't. We clearly need to factor this in.
- Our bench against Leeds was awful

So....do we have a small squad, or is it just imbalanced and distorted by injuries? 21 first teamers doesn't seem small! (Perhaps 20 if we class Mosquera as youth)

Like this reframe.

Not a lot to add on the depth of squad discussion, but it was noticeable when City took the pitch at the end of the season to lift the trophy just how big their backroom team was.

Not sure how comparable that is to a club like Wolves for example, or even whether it includes commercial staff etc - but I wonder how significant that is?

 

[DanishWolf]

I saw this comment in another thread and it got me thinking about the perceived small squad that we have. Compared against Man City:

Man City (18)
Ederson
Ortega
Walker
Stones
Dias
Phillips
Ake
Cancelo
Gundogan
Haaland
Grealish
Laporte
Rodri
De Bruyne
Alvarez
Silva
Mahrez
Foden

Wolves (20)
Sa
Sarkic
Ait-Nouri
Collins
Boly
Jonny
Semedo
Kilman
Toti
Neves
MGW
Moutinho
Dendoncker
Neto
Jimenez
Podence
Hwang
Chiquinho
Guedes
Traore

Man City also have the likes of Delap & Cole Palmer who have made appearances, whereas we have Mosquera, Cundle, Ronan (I suppose!) and Campbell.

I'm sure Man City have some more excellent youngsters too.

So....we have a bigger squad than Man City. Both clubs have a number of loanees out at the moment and both clubs are still supposedly looking at expanding their squad.

A few takeaways:
- Man City have a much better squad than us
- Man City have a much more balanced squad than us
- We have been unlucky and have a number of injuries, whereas Man City don't. We clearly need to factor this in.
- Our bench against Leeds was awful

So....do we have a small squad, or is it just imbalanced and distorted by injuries? 21 first teamers doesn't seem small! (Perhaps 20 if we class Mosquera as youth)

Very good points...
And yes I'd echo the takeaway that our squad is incredible unbalanced. Lots of central defenders, decent amount of wingers, when not hit by injuries. Very low on numbers for the CM and striker position.

 

[Halesowen wwfc]

Thing is they have 50m players sitting on the bench with little drop off if they are brought in to play. We have mosquera, ronan campbell and cundle.

 

[Hoganstolemywife]

Whilst I don’t necessarily disagree with your points I would counter that

- their youngsters need to be at a lighter level as they’re aiming much higher than us so it’s still relative

- they’ve got two fit senior full backs (unless I’ve forgotten someone) and semi regularly have to field Ake at LB and I’m fairly sure Laporte has filled in there too.

I think the point is we’re very insular looking at our squad compared to others, we’ll pick an area where one club is stronger than us then pick another area where another club is stronger than us. The reality is most squads in the league are short somewhere because, generally, if you’re working with a set amount of funds you’ll likely take a chance on being one short in a few places to have better quality over quantity and accept that if you get injuries there you’ll need to make do with someone out of position.

Liverpool are the same, how often has Milner played full back, Gomez gets played at RB (okay he can do it but he’s a CB naturally), we just obsess with our own squad and ignore others deficiencies because they aren’t our problem.

As it stands our squad isn’t far off in numbers, I’d say Gomes is our Ake / Gomez who can cover full back so we’re adequate there and we’ve got forwards if not strikers so are adequate there too. Obviously you’d like more than adequate but I’d rather 14/15 top players and risk being a bit light sometimes than 19/20 average players and never struggle for cover but always struggle for quality.

Obviously we need a CM still, but even that that’d likely be with one of Cundle or Ronan going out as a result I’d imagine.

Excellent post. I agree completely, especially about the 14/15 v 19/20 player side of things. I don't see the point in a large squad like that. It's what Palace did pre-Vieira and I always felt it was an error of judgement. I'm sure they agreed when it came to releasing a lot of the also rand for free at the end of their contracts.

Like everyone with eyes, I was aghast when I saw the state of the bench on Saturday and my initial response was how has this club been managed to allow such a paucity of options?

I've tried to be a bit fairer since then. Perhaps we have just been unlucky with injuries? 5 first teamers out is a lot, even if one of them (Traore) probably won't feature again.

Signing Guedes obviously helps a lot, although the skeptic in me wonders if he was truly unavailable for transfer until after the Leeds game.

 

[Fenrir_]

I saw this comment in another thread and it got me thinking about the perceived small squad that we have. Compared against Man City:

Man City (17)
Ederson
Carson
Walker
Dias
Phillips
Ake
Cancelo
Gundogan
Haaland
Grealish
Laporte
Rodri
De Bruyne
Alvarez
Silva
Mahrez
Foden

Wolves (21)
Sa
Sarkic
Ait-Nouri
Collins
Boly
Mosquera
Jonny
Semedo
Kilman
Toti
Neves
MGW
Moutinho
Dendoncker
Neto
Jimenez
Podence
Hwang
Chiquinho
Guedes
Traore

Man City also have the likes of Delap & Cole Palmer who have made appearances, whereas we have Cundle, Ronan (I suppose!) and Campbell.

So....we have a bigger squad than Man City. Significantly(!) Both clubs have a number of loanees out at the moment and both clubs are still supposedly looking at expanding their squad.

A few takeaways:
- Man City have a much better squad than us
- Man City have a much more balanced squad than us
- We have been unlucky and have a number of injuries, whereas Man City don't. We clearly need to factor this in.
- Our bench against Leeds was awful

So....do we have a small squad, or is it just imbalanced and distorted by injuries? 21 first teamers doesn't seem small! (Perhaps 20 if we class Mosquera as youth)

It's just a bit imbalanced, it needs a midfielder and obviously needs a striker having loaned Silva out but every other area is well stocked and has been for a while. A club of our size/position will never be able to have two players genuinely competing for each position on the pitch (unless we lower the standard of our first XI - no thanks!) and we'll also not have back ups to the back ups - which some people seem to think we should have

Think some of the perception is accentuated by having a bench of nine. Get a couple of injuries and it’s a sure thing that your matchday squad of twenty will have a few 'holes' in it

 

[Hoganstolemywife]

Thing is they have 50m players sitting on the bench with little drop off if they are brought in to play. We have mosquera, ronan campbell and cundle.

We have 10-20 million players on the bench (Hwang, Jonny, Traore eg) which is probably comparable given how far ahead of us they are as a club.

I didn't include those 4 you mentioned. Obviously they're miles better than us and you'd imagine they youngsters are too.

 

[WalsallWolf]

It is midfield we lack. Ever since Nuno came to the club, we have relied on 3 midfielders, sometimes 2,which while they are high in quality is just not sustainable. We need depth (quality in depth) and a different option in there.

A similar argument can be made for CF too.

 

[SA Wolf]

When you say 'unbalanced' are you talking about the squad or Shi and Sellars?

Be interesting to know where our squad sits compared to the rest of the Prem and not just with Citeh! When you have a moment .

 

[Minimalist]

The reason for the slight imbalance is partly due to the Change of system. Even that has just been somewhat corrected by losing a cb for a forward, if 4231 is the plan.

I’ve always said our squad isn’t really small, it’s a notion people just seem to have excepted (that’s not to say it’s big either, which would be a bad thing).
I’d actually have it smaller than it is now if I could, swap ronan and Cundle (loan out) for a Nunes or Palhinha. If 433 is the plan you could swap 2 of the forwards for one that is better than either.

At the end of January in our first Nuno prem season we went down to 16 outfield players, that is a small group.... and was one of the best periods we’ve had since promotion.

 

[Black Country Wanderer]

I saw this comment in another thread and it got me thinking about the perceived small squad that we have. Compared against Man City:

Man City (18)
Ederson
Ortega
Walker
Stones
Dias
Phillips
Ake
Cancelo
Gundogan
Haaland
Grealish
Laporte
Rodri
De Bruyne
Alvarez
Silva
Mahrez
Foden

Wolves (20)
Sa
Sarkic
Ait-Nouri
Collins
Boly
Jonny
Semedo
Kilman
Toti
Neves
MGW
Moutinho
Dendoncker
Neto
Jimenez
Podence
Hwang
Chiquinho
Guedes
Traore

Man City also have the likes of Delap & Cole Palmer who have made appearances, whereas we have Mosquera, Cundle, Ronan (I suppose!) and Campbell.

I'm sure Man City have some more excellent youngsters too.

So....we have a bigger squad than Man City. Both clubs have a number of loanees out at the moment and both clubs are still supposedly looking at expanding their squad.

A few takeaways:
- Man City have a much better squad than us
- Man City have a much more balanced squad than us
- We have been unlucky and have a number of injuries, whereas Man City don't. We clearly need to factor this in.
- Our bench against Leeds was awful

So....do we have a small squad, or is it just imbalanced and distorted by injuries? 21 first teamers doesn't seem small! (Perhaps 20 if we class Mosquera as youth)

Its a small squad as far as quality is concerned
Obviously we cant really compare ourselves to City when it comes to quality,but our bench on Saturday really hit the point home
Yes when we get the injured back its not so bad,but thats going to be a recurring theme as injuries and suspensions happen all the time
Guedes helps no doubt,i wonder if we will play him as an advanced midfielder eventually,but either way its a quality addition
We need another CM and striker,stating the obvious i know,but get those two in and we have a decent squad quality wise

 

[Bawtry Wolf]

Our forward options are currently one of the best outside of the top 6 and with the addition of centre forward cover is possibly the strongest. Over the last 2 seasons this has been seriously hampered by injury.

We have midfielders but not options as Bruno said last year, they’re all very similar. They are designed to counter, they don’t press well and don’t progress with the ball. Consequently the cry for more midfielders is actually a call for different type of midfielders (we more as well). Whether the club/Nuno tried to change things post Seville we’ll never know but unless we bring a different type of player(s) we will be stuck with a tactically limited midfield just because of the skill set of the current incumbents.

Selling/loaning Coady is probably the biggest indication/commitment to rebalancing the squad as I said yesterday there is no temptation to go back to old ways which held us back I think in the last 2 seasons.

 

[SteveBullsKnee]

It’s all about Risk and reward for me. We could have played it safe and kept silva (stunting his growth) and Coady (a potentially unhappy club captain) and signed two average players for the price we paid for Guedes.

Without an endless pot of money we rely on quality over quantity and pad it out with academy kids, I’m happy with that gamble.

I’ll add I still fully expect us to add definitely one more player possibly two before the window shuts

 

[Wolf_Words]

Good points being made here, I do also think the change to five subs will have a serious effect how teams use their squads. Since the Womens Euros, and I'm sure this did exist to some extent even with 3 subs, but I'm hearing more and more talk about teams having first XIs and "finishers" who come on to see out or change the game. Leeds being able to bring on four players towards the end certainly played a part on Saturday.

 

[Bawtry Wolf]

Good points being made here, I do also think the change to five subs will have a serious effect how teams use their squads. Since the Womens Euros, and I'm sure this did exist to some extent even with 3 subs, but I'm hearing more and more talk about teams having first XIs and "finishers" who come on to see out or change the game. Leeds being able to bring on four players towards the end certainly played a part on Saturday.

Saturday’s games will be interesting in 30+ degrees of heat. Any team that relies on pressing will struggle big time but all teams will need to use their subs judiciously.

 

[wwbug]

Pep is a great manager .
At the weekend he said two stand out points.
We play football in the middle of the park , that’s where our talent needs to be.
Natural goalscorers are born not made.
Compare that to our squad and the way we play.
Nuno always said we had an unbalanced squad

 

[Jonzy54]

The big difference is they have loads of creativity in midfield and a striker who will score loads of goals this season ,interspersed with goalscorers throughout the team/squad

 

[Hoganstolemywife]

The big difference is they have loads of creativity in midfield and a striker who will score loads of goals this season ,interspersed with goalscorers throughout the team/squad

...yup! They're miles ahead of 19 teams in our league. De Bruyne + Haaland is cheating

 

[wwbug]

It’s all about Risk and reward for me. We could have played it safe and kept silva (stunting his growth) and Coady (a potentially unhappy club captain) and signed two average players for the price we paid for Guedes.

Without an endless pot of money we rely on quality over quantity and pad it out with academy kids, I’m happy with that gamble.

I’ll add I still fully expect us to add definitely one more player possibly two before the window shuts

The outgoings are fine and well thought out. The incomings are great,and well thought out.
But the numbers are rotten. As you say that may change.

 

[Hoganstolemywife]

The outgoings are fine and well thought out. The incomings are great,and well thought out.
But the numbers are rotten. As you say that may change.

What do you mean the numbers are rotten?

 

[wwbug]

What do you mean the numbers are rotten?

Marcal, Coady, Silva , Hoever , Saiss Trincao Ruddy out.
Collins and Guedes in.
That’s makes our squad smaller. And most felt it should be larger.

 

[Hoganstolemywife]

Marcal, Coady, Silva , Hoever , Saiss Trincao Ruddy out.
Collins and Guedes in.
That’s makes our squad smaller. And most felt it should be larger.

But we have a bigger squad than Man City? Maybe we needed the streamlining?

Devils advocate

 

[goldfish]

With Guedes coming in I think we could afford to lose Traore and one of Podence or MGW if the fee's right, with the money spent on a CM. That'd make the balance far more comfortable. Selling Neto would be sad but we'd get enough to buy a replacement and a CM, though wages may be a factor.

 

[Wolf in Kenilworth]

It’s the quality of the depth and the blend.

 

[Contrarian]

You do have to be very careful with stats. On Saturday, Leeds bench has players younger than ours. However, those players have more top division matches than our young players. Perhaps "Appearances at top level" would be a good measure of squad depth, rather than just the numbers? Or even "International appearances".

Our Under-23's got totally hammered by Chelsea U23's the other night. It's misleading to say something like "Man City/Chelsea/Liverpool have Under-23's on their bench, too, so their squad is as small as ours yet their fans don't complain".

We are short in the lack of experience outside of our ideal first eleven. It impacts other areas, such as player development, because we need them on the bench "just in case", they can't go out on loan. So the likes of Silva, Cambell, Bueno who are too good for Under 23, but not yet at Premier League level, have to stay, meanwhile getting hardly any game time. At a big 6 club, those players would be out on loan playing competitive football at second level. Arguably, it's where Fabio should have gone from the day he arrived, yet as we had no striker backup (still don't, took a risk loaning him out) he had to stay and mostly sit on the bench.

 

[Flump]

Pep is a great manager .
At the weekend he said two stand out points.
We play football in the middle of the park , that’s where our talent needs to be.
Natural goalscorers are born not made.

Interesting that he said that about natural goal scorers, given he's spent most of his managerial career either playing without a classic centre forward, or even moving a classic forward out wide, like Eto'o.

 

[Streathamwolf]

Whilst I don’t necessarily disagree with your points I would counter that

- their youngsters need to be at a higher level as they’re aiming much higher than us so it’s still relative

- they’ve got two fit senior full backs (unless I’ve forgotten someone) and semi regularly have to field Ake at LB and I’m fairly sure Laporte has filled in there too.

I think the point is we’re very insular looking at our squad compared to others, we’ll pick an area where one club is stronger than us then pick another area where another club is stronger than us. The reality is most squads in the league are short somewhere because, generally, if you’re working with a set amount of funds you’ll likely take a chance on being one short in a few places to have better quality over quantity and accept that if you get injuries there you’ll need to make do with someone out of position.

Liverpool are the same, how often has Milner played full back, Gomez gets played at RB (okay he can do it but he’s a CB naturally), we just obsess with our own squad and ignore others deficiencies because they aren’t our problem.

As it stands our squad isn’t far off in numbers, I’d say Gomes is our Ake / Gomez who can cover full back so we’re adequate there and we’ve got forwards if not strikers so are adequate there too. Obviously you’d like more than adequate but I’d rather 14/15 top players and risk being a bit light sometimes than 19/20 average players and never struggle for cover but always struggle for quality.

Obviously we need a CM still, but even that that’d likely be with one of Cundle or Ronan going out as a result I’d imagine.

Spot on.

 

[SteveBullsKnee]

The outgoings are fine and well thought out. The incomings are great,and well thought out.
But the numbers are rotten. As you say that may change.

Personally if we get one more bona fide first team player the level of Collins/Guedes I’ll be happy, if we get two I’ll be ecstatic. Again I know that still leaves us short in many peoples eyes but I’ll take the risk of 1-2 with real quality than 3-4 that do little but improve the bench.

 

[goldfish]

Another way of thinking about this is looking at options for each position. Including players who've been on bench/around first team, this means...

GK: Sa, Sarkic
No issues here.

RB: Semedo, Jonny, Mosquera
LB: Ait-Nouri, Jonny, Gomes, Bueno
Something to address in medium term. Jonny's versatility useful but not sure he's suited to Lage's style

CB: Kilman, Collins, Gomes, Boly, Mosquera
Boly will need replacing as a back-up before too long, I suspect. I rate Gomes (and he's left-footed), but Mosquera an unknown quantity.

CM: Neves, Moutinho, Dendoncker, Cundle, Ronan
This is where we're short, of quality and variety.

RF: Gibbs-White, Guedes, Podence, Traore, Hwang, Campbell
Don't need all that depth, especially with Chiquinho to come back, though some can play other positions. Would be ok selling two of MGW, Traore and Podence to fund CM.

LF: Neto, Guedes, Hwang, Podence
Good balance here I think.

CF: Jimenez, Hwang, Guedes, (Silva)
Will get us through season, but we need a Jimenez replacement. Maybe Silva...?

 

[SteveBullsKnee]

You do have to be very careful with stats. On Saturday, Leeds bench has players younger than ours. However, those players have more top division matches than our young players. Perhaps "Appearances at top level" would be a good measure of squad depth, rather than just the numbers? Or even "International appearances".

Our Under-23's got totally hammered by Chelsea U23's the other night. It's misleading to say something like "Man City/Chelsea/Liverpool have Under-23's on their bench, too, so their squad is as small as ours yet their fans don't complain".

We are short in the lack of experience outside of our ideal first eleven. It impacts other areas, such as player development, because we need them on the bench "just in case", they can't go out on loan. So the likes of Silva, Cambell, Bueno who are too good for Under 23, but not yet at Premier League level, have to stay, meanwhile getting hardly any game time. At a big 6 club, those players would be out on loan playing competitive football at second level. Arguably, it's where Fabio should have gone from the day he arrived, yet as we had no striker backup (still don't, took a risk loaning him out) he had to stay and mostly sit on the bench.

I agree with all that, I suppose the issue is do we spend what little budget we have on squad filler to allow the youngsters to go on loan? Though I fully believe 1-2 will come in before the window shuts and Campbell plus A N other will go out, possibly Cundle. Campbell is front of the queue for a loan, with Guedes in, Traore and Raul to come back his game time will become very limited and he’s too good for the u23s