br62 said:What scares me is the massive drop in quality when some of our top players are out......Fernandinho, Negredo and Navas apart.
People are always going on about our squad and how strong it is.......I wish it was so strong but in my view we have a lot of very average players including five who are playing tonight.......Lescott, Nastasic, Clichy, Richards and Garcia.
There is a big drop in quality, but that's probably true of any side missing five of their very best players (Yaya, Silva, Aguero, Nasri, Kompany), isn't it? And I think those five are all fine squad players. I'd take Lescott and Nastasic over almost all other 3rd and 4th choice centre halves in the league (Chelsea might have better if you include Ivanovic?). Clichy is second choice at the moment, better than any others in the league. Hard to tell with Richards - looks so off the pace, but I wouldn't necessarily write him off yet. Garcia's ok, but I'd agree we're lacking depth in that area.