I think we're lacking both strength and depth. Depth wise we have one of the smallest squads in the league and probably Europe too. We've got around 16 first teamers when everyone is fit with a few squad fillers, there's definitely a need for a busy summer just to get the numbers we need, we're going to have to be very lucky with injuries for us to compete on all fronts this season, there's simply too few players Pep trusts compared to games.
The strength isn't as good as we perhaps think either, the team is picking itself most weeks now with the only real dilemma being which 3 from 4 play upfront and i suppose which 2 would play at the back if all were available at once. With the way Pep plays it's a case of us needing virtually all of our cogs in action at once in order for the machine to function as intended. We've seen this season when just 1 or 2 players are missing, the team lose something key and we struggle a lot more than you'd think despite the replacements seemingly top class players.
In the summer i think we'll see Yaya, Mangala, Danilo and possibly Bravo all move on, If Gunn is ready to claim our backup keeper spot and Maffeo comes back ready to be a genuine part of the squad there's effectively 2 extra free players due to their academy trained status and gives Pep a bit off leeway in terms of how he wants to shape his squad as getting rid of the players above means we'd have 5 extra free spots for foreign players (minus any potential January business) Without factoring in the development of the kids like Foden and Diaz, that's already 7 extra players that Pep can trust as he seemingly doesn't trust any of those right now, plus Mendy coming back. We could have anywhere between 8-10 viable extra options next season from as little as replacing 4 players. It's frightening that we've been this good so far this season yet there's so much scope to improve the squad without buying galactico's and become even more formidable.