The Squad Depth Myth

[Jimfv1]

imo txiki is well able to sign/spot defenders, barca were fine in that regard until a few years ago when Maxwell etc were allowed to leave and no replacements signed and the anti-soriano/txiki smear campaign had already been begun by rosell at that stage so wouldn't blame txiki.

Can you tell me which defensive players were bought by Barca when Txiki was there, I'm not on the windup, I'm just curious to see how successful he was in signing defenders. I have always thought both Real Madrid and Barca have looked suspect at the back, but you have to get the ball of them to expose this weakness. I always thought Ramos and Puyol respectively came through there youth squads. I realise Madrid signed Pepe and Barca signed Marquez years ago, but which other top class defensive players have Barca signed in the last ten years ?

real signed Ramos from sevilla IIRC, ok from memory here: promoted puyol, resigned pique (we'll suited to their system if not pl) alves Adriano abidal Maxwell Marquez thuram and probably a fair few I've forgotten, all quality defenders.

Cheers, let's hope we can improve our defence either this month or in the summer then.

 

[TheMightyQuinn]

We've never had it so tough.

We need at least another 20000m spending this window and same again over the summer if we are serious about competing with Munich, utd and Fifa15.

 

[Anonymous]

I wish someone would tell the media and the pundits to stop pedalling the myth that we have the best squad deoth in the premier league. This is our second choice midfield:

Navas Garcia Rodwell Milner

Compare this to chelsea:

schurle mikel mata luiz de bruyne

arsenal:

Gnabry rosicky arteta cazorla

tottenham:

lamela capoue sandro holtby towsend

Apart from navas our midfield back ups don't come close

City have best squad depth. Why ?? Squad is defenders + midfield + strikers.
City have stronger/better 4 midfield "starters" than any other club. ( Silva, Yaya, Fernandinho,Nasri - have biggest offence potential in the league ) . Arsenal or Chelsea may have slightly stronger midfield backups. City have one of the strongest defenders in the league. With Demichelis as strong backup. But City have THE BEST strikers. No other team have 3 ( + Jovetic as a joker ) as good strikers as City have. SO it does mean being strong in depth. Even Mourinho have said that. Dzeko is third striker, Dzeko ??, Jovetic is fourth.

Everton: have almost no depth. But have very good first team and manager.
Tottenham: have good depth in midfield. Defenders not so great ( especially backups ). And very poor strikers. Maybe Adebayor can change it with the new manager and his new found form.
Manchester United: Have 2 great strikers and two good backup strikers. Have strong defance. Good wingers. But are lacking creative midfielders. They have none. Plus new manager. Who is not as good as sir Alex was/is. ( They would give everything for a player as Jovetic. SIlva or Nasri even more ).
Liverpool: Have great first team. They lack good backups in almost any position. Especially strikers if played two up front.
Chelsea: Have great depth in all positions except strikers. Even their best striker Torres in not better then Citys third Dzeko. Eto and Ba are not good enough.
Arsenal: The same as Chelsea. They have only Giroud. Bendtner is even worse than Eto/Ba.

So if you put it all together. City have BEST SQUAD DEPTH in a league. Also richest squad. It you combine worth ( estimated value ) of all the players.

 

[OB1]

Mentioned this in another thread. You can't have a squad of 22 world class players: you won't find 11 world class players that will settle for being back-ups or 22 that will accept constant rotation... You have to get by with having some back-up players who are simply good (to very good). Like many things in life it is about balance.

The OP referred specifically to midfield and in that area, Arsenal's back-ups are probably closer in quality to their first choice midfield than ours are to one another. However, our first choice midfield is, IMO, easily the best in the league. Exeter Blue has been making the point recently that in some squads, Arsenal being the prime example, the composition the squads is more seamless. I think is probably true that Arsenal can interchange their midfield without much variation in style and quality than we can. Pellegrini will need time to evolve his squad to one that is completely designed to play his way. I doubt that Manny would sanction the purchase of another James Milner; just as I doubt that Wenger would be bidding for Jimmy if we transfer listed him. Jimmy might, IMO, be the most overrated player, by a big chunk of our supporters, in City's squad but he is still a very useful player.

I could waffle on but the family have decided my rather excellent French toast is required.

Bayern Munich: 17
Manuel Neuer
Dante
David Alaba
Jerome Boateng
Philipp Lahm
Thomas Müller
Toni Kroos
Mario Mandzukic
Rafinha
Franck Ribéry
Bastian Schweinsteiger
Arjen Robben
Mario Götze
Daniel van Buyten
Javi Martínez
Thiago Alcantara
Xherdan Shaqiri

Real Madrid: 18
Diego Lopez
Iker Casillas
Cristiano Ronaldo
Karim Benzema
Sergio Ramos
Isco
Pepe
Luka Modric
Ángel Di María
Sami Khedira
Álvaro Arbeloa
Marcelo
Gareth Bale
Asier Illarramendi
Xabi Alonso
Fábio Coentrão
Raphael Varane
Jese

Barcelona: 16
Victor Valdés
Cesc Fábregas
Gerard Piqué
Andrés Iniesta
Sergio Busquets
Alexis Sánchez
Neymar
Xavi
Adriano
Dani Alves
Pedro
Javier Mascherano
Alex Song
Jordi Alba
Carles Puyol
Cristian Tello

City: 14
Joe Hart
Yaya Touré
Fernandinho
Pablo Zabaleta
Samir Nasri
Sergio Agüero
Álvaro Negredo
Aleksandar Kolarov
David Silva
Vincent Kompany
Jesús Navas
Edin Dzeko
James Milner
Stevan Jovetic

Apologies for my stupidity but what's your point exactly, are you trying to list world class players? If you are, you have a different definition to me.

 

[The Fat el Hombre]

We've never had it so tough.

We need at least another 20000m spending this window and same again over the summer if we are serious about competing with Munich, utd and Fifa15.

Get real. We need a centre mid sharpish

 

[Manchester33]

I have a question mainly for the OP.


Would you swap our squad for anyone else's in England? I wouldn't.




IMO the big issue with Pelligrini is the lack of Youth he involves in the squad. It was a perfect opportunity to play Facey on the weekend, instead he plays an inexperienced CB out of position. But over all the squad can't be that bad, we haven't lost in a long time, and we've had a lot of games/travelling in the past month as well! Our under 18s and EDS are both in fine form, so I wouldn't worry too much at the minute. Judge our squad in may, not now!

 

[aguero93:20]

I have a question mainly for the OP.


Would you swap our squad for anyone else's in England? I wouldn't.




IMO the big issue with Pelligrini is the lack of Youth he involves in the squad. It was a perfect opportunity to play Facey on the weekend, instead he plays an inexperienced CB out of position. But over all the squad can't be that bad, we haven't lost in a long time, and we've had a lot of games/travelling in the past month as well! Our under 18s and EDS are both in fine form, so I wouldn't worry too much at the minute. Judge our squad in may, not now!

imo we may see more of the eds when the pressure of winning a first trophy is off mp.

 

[K-Bo]

In central midfield I think many clubs in the top half have better strength in depth than us. Even teams like southampton and Everton have better reserve options than we do. Everton's cover to Barry and McCarthy is Osman, an experienced and reliable PL player and Gibson, who is a bit of a crock but a decent player with good technique.

Ours are a Rodwell who is never fit and Garcia, a signing we've basically got stuck with and has many more bad games then good ones.

Think our defensive cover of Demichelis/Nastasic or Lescott is actually much stronger than this. A top CM signing should be our first port of call in the summer IMO. Am worried at times they don't want to sign competition for Yaya lest he throws a hissy, but I really think we need it.

 

[shemnel]

I think a lot of people are getting confused with

- Best squad of players as players (Barca?)
- Best squad of players that work as a squad (unknown?)
- Best squad of players that are able to plug gaps in a given system when first X! players are out (probably Bayern)

For me, number 1 is not good but will win you a weakened domestic league (this is not Pep's Barca anymore!)
number 2 is important as it represents players working well together and understanding each other with good cover in most positions

number 3 is the KEY. You have a system on the field, an ethos at the club. All players learn how to play it and squad members stepping in should be able to implement it, if not quite to the same high level as the first teamers. This is why you suddenly see reserves or forgotten players (Adebayor at Spurs) getting in the team as the managers need them for an ethos. The overall quality in a squad is actually very similar across a whole squad, aside from true standouts such as Aguero and Ya Ya. It's how the player works with a system and how he follows the required tactics that counts mostly. At City, some are struggling because they are either not used to Pellegrini's way yet or they simply do not play in the way Pellegrini wants them to.

Players are all different and play in different ways, they all fit different systems. This is what explains how a player can go from being rubbish to great at another club or a world beater to inneffective at another.

 

[Oystercatcher28]

I'd argue we have the most players that can play in different positions.