The Squad Depth Myth

[tolmie's hairdoo]

I don't think our quality reaches down lower than the first 14 or 15 players of this current squad make up.

The most obvious thing for me is that Pellegrini and City are trying to establish a style of play from the youngsters right through to the first team.

But the team is unrecognisable in general play when the manager does attempt to utilise and rotate.

The quality of our starting eleven is such that is just exposes above average or below average players.

Not their fault, a result of a poor spending policy from previous years and the evolution taking place.

 

[Wiekens]

Think we need to strenghen in the midfield and up front and 1 defender in the summer for me lescott garcia rodwell dzeko and jovetic need replacing and we have to make pogba 1 of them replacements.

I agree with the sentiment of this. I do think Rodwell and Jovetic could offer something in the long term so I'd keep them. But Garcia and Dzeko are both dross in my opinion, so suddenly you're looking at having only two good, fit CMs and only two good, fit CFs. So once one of those is injured, like aguero is now, we look a bit stretched for quality in those positions.

I also think vinny needs a better centre back partner. I like nastasic but he's a bit young and could do with putting on a bit of muscle, dimichelis is a decent experienced back up for Vinnie and as much as I like lescott his inability to trap and pass a ball means that he can't quite hack it at the top level.

So if I was txiki begiristain I'd be looking to offload Lescott, Garcia and Dzeko whilst signing 3 replacements for them plus I'd sign another creative midfielder to take a bit of pressure off nasri and silva and let them have a break every so often. That's just my two penneth!

 

[TonyBookEnd]

I think the first team squad needs to be smaller but with the quality and versatility improving. After our 4-5 main players there's too a big drop off in quality. We have a lot of steady players bloating the squad which is stifling the development of our academy players.

 

[Rammy Blue]

I don't think our quality reaches down lower than the first 14 or 15 players of this current squad make up.

The most obvious thing for me is that Pellegrini and City are trying to establish a style of play from the youngsters right through to the first team.

But the team is unrecognisable in general play when the manager does attempt to utilise and rotate.

The quality of our starting eleven is such that is just exposes above average or below average players.

Not their fault, a result of a poor spending policy from previous years and the evolution taking place.

It's incredible though that through all the squad investment we have made over the last 3 or 4 years we are still a good 6/7 players short from having a good enough squad.

I suppose it shows that buying sicknotes doesn't help.

 

[Aytoun]

Going back to early season we had several setbacks not least with team selection away from home. Most people were disappointed but took the view that MP was new & was probably looking at what he had inherited.
However we are now in January & he is STILL using players who would barely cut it at Championship level, as was proven yesterday.
We all know about injuries, hectic schedule etc. but several of those playing on a regular basis should realistically be in our " 3rd " team, because they are not good enough fundamentally, but still the old deadheads keep trotting out & playing exactly the same useless way they performed last time.
Of course you cannot win every game & some by a long way, but we are now back to pleading for the ref to blow for time as in Liverpool, Fulham, Swansea & Blackburn. We cannot even defend a lead & not because of our holistic attitude, but lack of ability.
The stated objective of this club is to win all 4 competitions this year & the strength of our squad is put forward as a major reason it will happen.
As this post says this is a myth.

 

[Rammyblues]

It seems with having purchased two for every position maybe on the grounds that only one player would be injured or suspended always leaving the second player available through rotation etc to cover we have been found out this season especially in defence. Seeing defence is going to be the area I suspect in the summer whereby wholesale changes are made it will be interesting to see whether they are specific to their positions or whether all who are signed can play across the whole back four.

 

[Lucky Toma]

When you see three or four changes made you expect to witness slightly inferior performances from slightly inferior players. You also expect and accept possession to be slightly disjointed and positioning to be awry at times (the latter due to individuals concentrating on what positioning is expected of them rather than having the confidence to improvise).
When those incoming include Garcia at the hub you additionally expect the pace of our play to dip from the norm.

But what concerns me is this....

Pellers has successfully incorporated Mancini's patterns of play into his more attacking philosophy. You know the patterns I refer to - the triangles in and around the box as we squeeze the play. The constant and patient probing that comes from this.

It is a template and therefore not - in theory - reliant on any individual. Its just that some - Yaya and Silva predominantly - will implement that template better than others.

Those on the periphery of the first team practise this template day in, day out and should be completely au fait with it.

So why is it that when we make sweeping changes - instead of their being an acceptable dip in application of it for the reasons I stated at the beginning - this template is NOT FUCKING DONE AT ALL?!!!

Instead we get the minimum of pressing and the most ABC passing imaginable...if we're lucky.

It literally makes no sense to me and I cannot figure out the reason.

Its got nothing to do with Boyata or Lescott's failings, or even Garcia's snail-like pace. And its got little to do with our quality dropping as a consequence of playing lesser players. We simply dont play the same way when our peripheral players are drafted in.

Yesterday we only played our usual template for the last twenty mins - or at least until Boyata saw red - and its no coincidence that was when Navas and Yaya came on.

 

[tolmie's hairdoo]

I don't think our quality reaches down lower than the first 14 or 15 players of this current squad make up.

The most obvious thing for me is that Pellegrini and City are trying to establish a style of play from the youngsters right through to the first team.

But the team is unrecognisable in general play when the manager does attempt to utilise and rotate.

The quality of our starting eleven is such that is just exposes above average or below average players.

Not their fault, a result of a poor spending policy from previous years and the evolution taking place.

It's incredible though that through all the squad investment we have made over the last 3 or 4 years we are still a good 6/7 players short from having a good enough squad.

I suppose it shows that buying sicknotes doesn't help.

I agree, but it's the ending of a five-year cycle and the starting of a new one.

I fear we are going to run out of steam and luck if we continue to rely on players who come in and can't pick up the slack.

Rodwell, Garcia, Sinclair, Jovetic - that's £55m right there, which is just scary.

I don't see what we lose trying to recruit this window? If nothing else, we get upgrades and they are bang on it for the start of next season.

Chelsea's first eleven is a couple of yards down on us but their deeper squad quality is far superior for me.

 

[Rammy Blue]

When you see three or four changes made you expect to witness slightly inferior performances from slightly inferior players. You also expect and accept possession to be slightly disjointed and positioning to be awry at times (the latter due to individuals concentrating on what positioning is expected of them rather than having the confidence to improvise).
When those incoming include Garcia at the hub you additionally expect the pace of our play to dip from the norm.

But what concerns me is this....

Pellers has successfully incorporated Mancini's patterns of play into his more attacking philosophy. You know the patterns I refer to - the triangles in and around the box as we squeeze the play. The constant and patient probing that comes from this.

It is a template and therefore not - in theory - reliant on any individual. Its just that some - Yaya and Silva predominantly - will implement that template better than others.

Those on the periphery of the first team practise this template day in, day out and should be completely au fait with it.

So why is it that when we make sweeping changes - instead of their being an acceptable dip in application of it for the reasons I stated at the beginning - this template is NOT FUCKING DONE AT ALL?!!!

Instead we get the minimum of pressing and the most ABC passing imaginable...if we're lucky.

It literally makes no sense to me and I cannot figure out the reason.

Its got nothing to do with Boyata or Lescott's failings, or even Garcia's snail-like pace. And its got little to do with our quality dropping as a consequence of playing lesser players. We simply dont play the same way when our peripheral players are drafted in.

Yesterday we only played our usual template for the last twenty mins - or at least until Boyata saw red - and its no coincidence that was when Navas and Yaya came on.

We weren't playing a high line at the back and with Garcia in the team it was effectively a 5 man defence with 2 up front. Therefore only 3 players were playing between those 2 lines with a huge gap between them which made it impossible to press and play decent one touch football.

 

[Brendan110_0]

Never heard as much bollocks as this thread. We have a great squad depth, just have a few injuries to key players. BTW I thought Blackburn played as well as they possibly can, it was a fair result as I don't think City played badly either. We're never going to win every game but I expect us to win vs Blackburn at home.

 

[Rammy Blue]

I don't think our quality reaches down lower than the first 14 or 15 players of this current squad make up.

The most obvious thing for me is that Pellegrini and City are trying to establish a style of play from the youngsters right through to the first team.

But the team is unrecognisable in general play when the manager does attempt to utilise and rotate.

The quality of our starting eleven is such that is just exposes above average or below average players.

Not their fault, a result of a poor spending policy from previous years and the evolution taking place.

It's incredible though that through all the squad investment we have made over the last 3 or 4 years we are still a good 6/7 players short from having a good enough squad.

I suppose it shows that buying sicknotes doesn't help.

I agree, but it's the ending of a five-year cycle and the starting of a new one.

I fear we are going to run out of steam and luck if we continue to rely on players who come in and can't pick up the slack.

Rodwell, Garcia, Sinclair, Jovetic - that's £55m right there, which is just scary.

I don't see what we lose trying to recruit this window? If nothing else, we get upgrades and they are bang on it for the start of next season.

Chelsea's first eleven is a couple of yards down on us but their deeper squad quality is far superior for me.

I agree about Chelsea, I'd say Arsenal is a similar situation as well.

With regards recruiting I suppose it depends how Txiki has been looking at things. Is he trying to find upgrades on first team players or has he been doing the correct scouting on squad fillers? We definitely need a couple of players, maybe we'll use the loan system to flesh out the squad. Be nice if we could shift a couple of the deadwood as well.

 

[chesterbells]

The issue for me isn't recruitment, it's the opposite. IMHO I'd guess there'd be agreement on who we could happily let go to allow new players to be brought in, even in Jan. But, is there genuinely any demand for any of our surplus players out there at a reasonable price?
As examples, I read about Arsenal having a long standing interest in Richards or Dzeko, but knowing the kind of players Wenger has nurtured over the years, I'd be amazed if he was prepared to pay good money for Micah.

But, yes, agree it is a handy media myth we have by far best and deepest squad

 

[OB1]

We don't have the deepest squad and, as I posted earlier, we need to evolve the squad to one better suited to a play the way we want but I think some on here are still underselling the quality of the squad. I firmly believe that not only do we have the best first 11 in the league, we also have the best bench, when everyone is fit. After our best 18 or 20 players, things get thin pretty quickly.

At the moment, we are missing nearly half a team of injured players. Also, how many times this season has Manny been able to field his best 11?

There's been much bemoaning of our resources after yesterday but I think most of those that took the field yesterday simply underperformed. There should have been more than enough quality out there to win. The team were not helped by the choice of full backs and strikers, both of which were not the ideal mix but were the product of injuries and the need to rotate. If Jovetic and Richards had been fit, the balance would have been far better.

We need to evolve the squad but we also need some more product coming through from the Academy to help when too many injuries strike.

 

[Anonymous]

I agree about Chelsea, I'd say Arsenal is a similar situation as well.

With regards recruiting I suppose it depends how Txiki has been looking at things. Is he trying to find upgrades on first team players or has he been doing the correct scouting on squad fillers? We definitely need a couple of players, maybe we'll use the loan system to flesh out the squad. Be nice if we could shift a couple of the deadwood as well.

I think the real problem is that our best XI is almost untouchable. This means when we're out trying to sign players a lot of them will know they aren't going to be in that best XI.

 

[ZZmaestro]

Simply put, we are one Fernh/ Yaya/Zaba injury away from disaster.
The covers we have for those three are B grade strings.
Sure, we have descent overall squad covers, but we lack quality.
Once we have sorted this, we would honestly say that we have the best bench in the league.

 

[Deleted member 58678]

I've said for the last three years, when it has kept on being said by the media and fans how we have this great squad, that we don't have a particularly good squad at all for a supposed top of a league/Champions Lg team.

Past our core running through the middle: Hart Kompany Fernandinho Yaya Silva Kun (and even Hart and Yaya as they have shown to have poor aspects of their game recently) everyone else in our squad is totally replaceable.

Put a few excellent players to that core of world class like Nastasić Zabaleta Nasri Navas Negredo and we've got a really good starting team. Past that and we are weak and that's what a squad is, not how good your starting XI is but how good the players past your starting XI are.

I think we've got the third or fourth best starting XI in the world, vying with Juve for that spot IMO. But how often do we or any team have their strongest XI available? Squad wise I don't rate us that highly at all.

Having good Academy products vying for places in our team is something really lacking too. I think Academy players are an important part of all squads. The three teams I rate higher than us Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern München have a number of youth products in their squads (that's only really happened this season at Madrid with Ancelotti coming in), whereas we don't have anyone.

 

[Anonymous]

I've said for the last three years, when it has kept on being said by the media and fans how we have this great squad, that we don't have a particularly good squad at all for a supposed top of a league/Champions Lg team.

In world football remove Barca, Madrid, and Bayern. Name 3 teams with better squads than us.

 

[Deleted member 58678]

I've said for the last three years, when it has kept on being said by the media and fans how we have this great squad, that we don't have a particularly good squad at all for a supposed top of a league/Champions Lg team.

In world football remove Barca, Madrid, and Bayern. Name 3 teams with better squads than us.

Would Lescott, García, Boyata get game time at Juve, Atléti, Dortmund, Napoli, Chelsea, Arsenal?

 

[Anonymous]

I've said for the last three years, when it has kept on being said by the media and fans how we have this great squad, that we don't have a particularly good squad at all for a supposed top of a league/Champions Lg team.

In world football remove Barca, Madrid, and Bayern. Name 3 teams with better squads than us.

Would Lescott, García, Boyata get game time at Juve, Atléti, Dortmund, Napoli, Chelsea, Arsenal?

That's not what I asked you big man. If City don't have a "particularly good squad at all for a supposed league/Champions Lg team" - other than the teams I mentioned who does ?

 

[SWP's back]

In world football remove Barca, Madrid, and Bayern. Name 3 teams with better squads than us.

Would Lescott, García, Boyata get game time at Juve, Atléti, Dortmund, Napoli, Chelsea, Arsenal?

That's not what I asked you big man. If City don't have a "particularly good squad at all for a supposed league/Champions Lg team" - other than the teams I mentioned who does ?

I am in full agreement with you on this.