How many extra players do we need for next season?

All season I've felt that our starting XI and the players immediately outside that are all pretty excellent but our squad and fringe players are not good enough and we don't have enough if them (apart from central midfield where we have eleven players: Yaya Nasri Silva Milner deJong Barry Pizzarro Hargreaves Razak Suarez and Roman). United's squad is much stronger and deeper than ours in most of the other areas.

I would say three or four players (centre half, two wingers and a striker) is needed. Looking at it we don't need to go and spend fortunes on Angel Di Maria, Ezequiel Lavezzi and the like; simply squad players like Victor Moses, Nathan Dyer and so on. Just extra strength in depth when we've got a few injuries and suspensions, and we're struggling to break teams down we can look at more than the one man we ever have on the bench who might be able to change something in Adam Johnson.

It all depends on who leaves as well though.<br /><br />-- Thu Apr 19, 2012 7:39 pm --<br /><br />
LoveCity said:
We've used fewer players in the league than all but two lower table teams. Says to me that Mancini is not impressed enough by our vaunted "depth" to use them much, think we could see a fair few players, especially if a lot are leaving.
Click to expand...
We have no depth in any area outside centre mid.
 
Centreback also levazzi who I find real quality, got to be make or break for Johnson next season.
 
Depends how many go.

If Tevez goes as expected then we need somone as good as or better than him becuase we cant rely on Balotelli and Dzeko isnt good enough.

We need someone in Midfield better than what we have

We need a top class central defender

That should do it
 
Pundits often talk about the "spine" of a team...

City's spine is pretty strong...and there aren't many better players in the Premier League in the equivalent positions than:

Hart
Richards Kompany Lescott Clichy
Yaya
Silva
Aguero

But...hang on a minute...if these players are so good...why aren't we 5 points ahead rather than 5 points behind Utd ??

1) The "other" players (Barry / De Jong / Milner / Nasri / AJ / Dzeko / Balo ) have not performed...and undermined our performance.
Solution: We upgrade these players with better alternatives
(e.g. Hazard for AJ , Modric for Barry)

2) The "other" players have done as well as could be expected...but we have not found the consistency / "gel factor" away from home to get the right results.
Solution: We either give RM one more season to get it right..or bite the bullet and bring in a manager that can extract more from our squad.

3) We lack leadership (especially in tight away games) and the squad needs an injection of "bottle" rather than "quality" to squeeze out more points next season.
Solution: We allow RM to bring in his choice of leaders/characters (e.g. De Rossi ) that will give us that winning mentality that has deserted us at times this season.

I have made the point repeatedly in various threads... that the main difference between ourselves + Utd... has been the ability to squeeze out points in the last 10 mins of away games.
They are experts at turning draws into wins...we meekly turn draws into defeats: Sunderland (unlucky) / Swansea / Arsenal etc.
(overall 14 point swing in their favour compared to us in last 10 mins of away games)

For this reason...I favour a "young" Vieira / Roy Keane type signing that will drive the team forward in tight games + inspire teammates.
+ maybe a direct winger to give us a plan b when our normal possession football approach is not working.
 
if we had kept jerome botang and played him instead of savic would we have done better,he looks could for a champions final with munich
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Unread Posts

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top
✖
  AdBlock Detected
Bluemoon relies on advertising to pay our hosting fees. Please support the site by disabling your ad blocking software to help keep the forum sustainable. Thanks.