The Squad Depth Myth

[decmancity]

I don't think it's a myth, if I could choose any midfield that was fully fit and raring to go I would choose our midfield. After that Chelsea's.

The rest. No.

 

[IWasHere]

Tell Munich.

they have januzaj, cleaverly, fellani and nani... the best midfieldin the world

 

[CatMan]

It would help if what are regarded as good players are available for selection.

Jovetic would be a huge help. Richards is a loss. Rodwell must have something to offer too, however all of these that regularly roll of the commentator's tongue when going in about squad depth, have hardly appeared.

Add in injuries to Aguero, DeMichelis, Kompany and Zabaleta then you can see we are scratching around for a matchday squads on some games.

There will have to be some big decisions made this January or else we will, as was seen today, be forced to play out of form players in alien positions.

So far we have been fortunate, however Pellegrini must realise that this is the business end of the season now and there will be very few teams that will roll over and have their tummies tickled.

 

[Marvin]

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

they're shite gnarby's overrated, he's average.

lamela hasnt impressed me this season.

the rest i agree

I couldn't name Arsenal's, Spurs or Chelsea's best midfield. We've got Nasri, Silva, Milner, Yaya and Fernandinho. And after that what? Rodwell - permanently injured. Garcia - OK but he's not creative. It's the same players with very little variation game after game

 

[IWasHere]

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

they're shite gnarby's overrated, he's average.

lamela hasnt impressed me this season.

the rest i agree

I couldn't name Arsenal's, Spurs or Chelsea's best midfield. We've got Nasri, Silva, Milner, Yaya and Fernandinho. And after that what? Rodwell - permanently injured. Garcia - OK but he's not creative. It's the same players with very little variation game after game

jo jo will be back

 

[moomba]

We've had it worse.

 

[aguero93:20]

they're shite gnarby's overrated, he's average.

lamela hasnt impressed me this season.

the rest i agree

I couldn't name Arsenal's, Spurs or Chelsea's best midfield. We've got Nasri, Silva, Milner, Yaya and Fernandinho. And after that what? Rodwell - permanently injured. Garcia - OK but he's not creative. It's the same players with very little variation game after game

jo jo will be back

and navas is missing there

 

[carlos tevez is a blue]

City

Pantillimon

Clichy Lescott Demichelis Richards
Milner Rodwell Garcia Navas
Dzeko Jovetic

Arsenal
Vivano
Monreal Theinvisibleman Vermaelen Jenkinson
Wilshire Flamini
Ramsey Rosicky Podolski
Bendtner


We shit all over Arsenal. Chelsea have a stronger squad than us though.

 

[NoahCity]

Agreed, I say that over the next two windows, I would like to see an AM/winger added, a DM (similar to Fernandinho hopefully) and a class CB. That represents the minimum for me, other moves I can see are perhaps us adding 2 players in central midfield instead of just 1 (after all, neither Rodwell or Garcia are decent so we might need to replace both) and back ups brought in in at the fullback positions as Richards is unreliable atm and Clichy has regressed (the FB is least urgent as Richards may yet overcome his injuries and Clichy is still decent and may rediscover his form).

 

[BusterPhillips]

There is a fine balance when buying players to make up a squad. Most of our second stringers do ok when they are the only player brought in and are surrounded by 10 regular first team players. It's when you mix them all together at the same time. Problem is most of them are big names and big money signings who probably rate themselves higher than most of us rate them and don't see these games as a chance to impress. They probably think they should actually be playing every week. Dzeko springs to mind.....

Currently I would put the under performing Clichy behind Kolorov in the left back pecking order and so today we had our second string goalkeeper playing, a third string right back, a second string CB, a second string LB, 2 second string midfielders and one 2nd string forward.

That is 7 players who for me are not going to start a first team PL match on a regular basis.

That is way too many and it shows every time we do it with the exception of a Munich which I find a difficult one to explain. Maybe this was a game these players actually felt their talents deserved hence the better performance.

Perhaps going forward we should be dangling a carrot to the EDS players in games like this who would be hungry to impress and buy some players going forward who understand that they are the future of the club and may not start every game but will eventually become regulars.

Having said that the players that played today should have been easily good enough to beat a blackburn a 2nd string!

Their performance will have hopefully opened Pellegrini's eyes to the team he needs to put out on Wednesday and in games like this for the rest of the season.

I couldn't have put it any better myself!