Defence is another story. Many games where we were beaten, the entire side controlled the game poorly or the keeper or someone during the set piece made an error. Lack of actual quality and organisation where main issues there. Where as new legs, ideas and a change of tempo let us down in attack. Depth was more of an issue when we needed to break teams down. And when you need 8 players on the edge of an opponents box to score, that understandably leaves you very open anyway.
Berbatov may have turned it on againast the shitty teams, but was not a great deal better overall than Chamakh - who did OK for us first half of the season.Originally Posted by AKBapologist
Its easy to look at things with hindsight - remember how long Cesc and RVP took to get fit - and the fact that Vermaelen was injured for the whole season? Back before January many were praising our strength in depth. For me, at the very least our failure had as much to do with the senior first team members as it had to do with the strength in depth of our back-ups. And in particular the fact that the so-called first team suffered a group malaise - in which only RVP and perhaps Wilshere can hold their heads up.
Putting the laughter back into manslaughter
So why talk about strength in depth - when its generally acknowledged that our defence was our Achilles heel last season? If Clichy had talked about a lack of organisation; a lack of maturity or a lack of first team quality, I could live with that. Lack of strength in depth - not so much.
Putting the laughter back into manslaughter
Analysis:
Goalkeeping - One totally rubbish keeper, a young keeper with potential who isn't ready yet and a third keeper who has yet to prove his worth
Defence - total dogshite, don't play as a unit, lots of individual errors, can't defend set pieces
Midfield - Not enough bite, aggression and not really any genuine wide players
Attack - bar one player not enough goals, too many players who can't shoot for toffee
Depth - No decent substitutes to make a difference when required, the backup defenders are also rubbish
Other areas - Too many injury prone players
In a perfect world we'd bring in a number of quality players to make a difference whilst holding onto to our better players like, RVP, Cesc, Nasri, Wilshere.
Last edited by Özim; 05-07-2011 at 06:13 PM.
Beyond Nasri, and Cesc (who was injured for most of the second half), the attacking players in first 11 was remarkably consistent. The back ups? RVP almost scored more than Bendy and Chamakh combined, Rosicky, dreadful, Arshavin? Ten goals and 18 assists wasn't bad, but often lacked cutting edge. And who else is there? Diaby? Ramsey? Both who didn't play more than 10 games between them ALL SEASON!
Yes, this is in hindsight, that's how analysis works. Our squad players weren't good enough. They weren't good enough in rotation, they weren't good enough as subs and when united could count on a greater number of players to do a job for them than we could, you've got to wonder.
With the transfer season becoming clearer we can now update the squad to the following projection.
Players who have left, or are in the process of leaving have been removed. Players with serious doubts on there partisipation in grey.
Homegrown players over the age of 21
Denilson
Johan Djourou
Cesc Fabregas
Vito Mannone
Alex Song
Carlos Vela
Theo Walcott
Armand Traore
Kieran Gibbs
Non homegrown players
Gervinho
Andrey Arshavin
Marouane Chamakh
Abou Diaby
Emmanuel Eboue
Lukasz Fabianski
Laurent Koscielny
Samir Nasri
Tomas Rosicky
Bacary Sagna
Robin Van Persie
Thomas Vermaelen
Sebastien Squillaci
Under 21's likely to be a big part of next season. (in red those we'd probably need to make space for in the squad)
Kyle Bartley (20)
Ryo Myachi (18)
Francis Coquelin (20)
Craig Eastmond (21)
Jay Emmanuel-Thomas (21)
Emmanuel Frimpong (19)
Conor Henderson (20)
Henri Lansbury (20)
Aaron Ramsey (21)
Wojciech Szczesny (21)
Jack Wilshere (19)
Carl Jenkinson (19)
Ignasi Miquel (18)
Home Grown Players Total: 9 (At least 8 is required in a 25 man squad)
Home Grown Players minus potential departures: 6
None-homegrown players: 11 (17 is the limit)
None-Homegrown players minus likely departures: 10
Current Squad size: 21
Current squad size minus potential departures: 17
In one word...
Whelp!
This Weeks version
Players who have left, or are in the process of leaving have been removed. Players with serious doubts on there partisipation in grey.
Homegrown players over the age of 21
Johan Djourou
Cesc Fabregas
Vito Mannone
Alex Song
Carlos Vela
Theo Walcott
Armand Traore
Kieran Gibbs
Non homegrown players
Gervinho
Andrey Arshavin
Marouane Chamakh
Abou Diaby
Emmanuel Eboue
Lukasz Fabianski
Laurent Koscielny
Samir Nasri
Tomas Rosicky
Bacary Sagna
Robin Van Persie
Thomas Vermaelen
Sebastien Squillaci
Under 21's likely to be a big part of next season. (in red those we'd probably need to make space for in the squad)
Kyle Bartley (20) (going back to rangers?)
Ryo Myachi (18) (visa?)
Francis Coquelin (20)
Craig Eastmond (21)
Jay Emmanuel-Thomas (21)
Emmanuel Frimpong (19)
Conor Henderson (20)
Henri Lansbury (20)
Aaron Ramsey (21)
Wojciech Szczesny (21)
Joel Campbell (18) (visa?)
Jack Wilshere (19)
Carl Jenkinson (19)
Ignasi Miquel (18)
Home Grown Players Total: 8 (At least 8 is required in a 25 man squad)
Home Grown Players minus potential departures: 7
None-homegrown players: 13 (17 is the limit)
None-Homegrown players minus likely departures: 11
Current Squad size: 21
Current squad size minus potential departures: 18
wow. that's interesting.
so we can expect a signing of a british player soon? is that how it's fixed?
or can we bump up an under 21 -player to that group???
It's a bit confusing. Basically, you can't have more than 17 none-homegrown players in your squad, because in a maximum 25 man squad of players over the age of 21, 8 of them have to be homegrown.
We can have less than the 8, if we have less than 25 members in this squad. Unless Cesc or another homegrown player leaves, we don't actually need to buy English at all. Real issue is that we're not fully taking advantage of the slots, we could really add 3 players and be comfortably within the limit before any additional departures.
This Weeks version
Players who have left, or are in the process of leaving have been removed. (Eboue, Fabregas, Vela, Bendtner, Alumina, Clichy, Denilson) Players with serious doubts on there partisipation in grey.
Homegrown players over the age of 21
Johan Djourou
Vito Mannone
Alex Song
Theo Walcott
Armand Traore
Kieran Gibbs
Non homegrown players
Gervinho
Samir Nasri
Andrey Arshavin
Marouane Chamakh
Abou Diaby
Lukasz Fabianski
Laurent Koscielny
Tomas Rosicky
Bacary Sagna
Robin Van Persie
Thomas Vermaelen
Sebastien Squillaci
Under 21's likely to be a big part of next season. (in red those we'd probably need to make space for in the squad)
Ryo Myachi (18)
Francis Coquelin (20)
Craig Eastmond (21)
Emmanuel Frimpong (19)
Conor Henderson (20)
Henri Lansbury (20)
Aaron Ramsey (21)
Wojciech Szczesny (21)
Joel Campbell (18) (visa?)
Jack Wilshere (19)
Carl Jenkinson (19)
Ignasi Miquel (18)
Oxlaid Chamberlain. (17)
Home Grown Players Total: 7 (At least 7 is required in a 25 man squad)
Home Grown Players minus potential departures: 6
None-homegrown players: 12 (17 is the limit)
None-Homegrown players minus likely departures: 12
Current Squad size: 19
Current squad size minus potential departures: 18
Last edited by AKBapologist; 10-08-2011 at 10:54 PM.
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