Our squad.

[c3blu]

I have posted something similer under another topic but i think it should have its own thread because i wanted to see if anybody else agrees.

Since winning the league a couple of years back i think we have diluted the quality/class in our squad. We have probably in the process increased the average age of our squad aswell and to make it even worse it has cost us money to do it.

I thought Malouda was supposed to be a winger,yet in 5/6 matches for us i'm still waiting for him to take somebody on.

Shevchenko is fast becoming the worst signing of all time by anybody EVER.

Wright-Phillips is much improved this season but he still needs about 5/6 chances(which he wont get against any decent side) just to get a shot on target let alone score a goal. He shoots when he should cross,cross when he should shoot. Plays it across goal when he should pull it back, basically he lacks end product. He could'nt get in the side before, and he's not in it now because of his improvement but because players who were keeping him out have left.

Ballack who?

I know some who have left have gone for non-footballing reasons and not all could have been kept anyway but surely its up to the club/manager to replace people leaving with players of at least the same standard some would argue they should be replaced with better quality.

So who would you rather have:

Duff or Kalou?

Gudjohnson or Ballack?

Crespo or Pizzarro?

Robben or Malouda?

Gallas or Ben Haim?

Sheva or one of the pensioners?

Mikel looks a good young player, but ?16m? and Diarra to le Arse for next to nothing is complete nonsense.

If we had kept our title winning squad together we would be far better of, and they would of course have had the benefit of playing together in that time and would know each others game inside out.

Instead we have as i have said diluted the quality of our squad and it has cost us a tidy some of money in the process.

[evissy]

Oh, come on now. We have played 5 matches and lost one tough away game and people here are sacking Jose and what else. We lost Lamps just before the game and you should now see how influental peace he is of our game. Didn't watch the game yesterday, but I recon it wasn't totally awful from us.

Next game will be better. Now my only hope is that Sheva will get some time on the pitch. No one seem to know what is going on with Sheva. He has to be injured otherwise JM would have him on the bench at least.

We will win next two games and forget all about this Villa match!

Blackburn is visiting us saturday and Rosenborg next tuesday. After those two victories we travel to Manchester and beat Ronaldo-Rooney-less ManU..

[Barn]

I'll just pick out a few of the player options that you gave us and try to explain why I thing you're talking sh*te;

Crespo - Pizarro? I'll take Pizarro, he wants to be here.

Robben - Malouda? Both look like good players but who will stand up and be counted when we need him, Robben certainly didn't so I'll wait till Malouda settles in and see if he proves he's got the balls to be here.

Gallas - Ben Haim? What a player that consistently moans and upset's the whole mood around the club (including his teammates), or a good solid proffessional that's will work hard and do a decent job when he's called upon (and hopefull??? not moan about being on the bench, or being asked to play in a different position).

I understand what you mean about the ability of some of the players we've bought in, but I think you need to keep it in context. We're not looking to build our team around these players, they are players that JM thinks will add something that the squad is currently missing. I happen to think we've got a very strong squad this year, we have big players that would walk into any other team in the league and we also have players that are good solid players and will be reliable performers throughout the season.

Let's see how it goes shall we before we start righting off our chances/squad/manager.

[Nibs]

Have to agree with C3blu.

Many of us have already gone on record on Jose's not that great transfer dealings and the signs are that they are not getting any better. Great coach and motivator he maybe and his ability to instill a winning mentality in his teams is not in question. But our squad now is definitely not as good as was a season or two back and what is more worrying is that other teams do look significantly stronger.

It's easy to forget how these thing always go in circles and whereas we looked totally dominant not so long ago, now we have a squad with a fair number of cracks. I am not basing this on one defeat but on how we've looked for some time. Ok the Villa defeat was our first in the league since January at Anfield, but how many times have we really impressed during that time and looked anything like a team of world-beaters? And how many times when we go behind in a game do we resort to hoofing it long and push our centre backs up to play alongside Drogba? That panic type play which should only be a very last resort is used time and again and that for me says a lot about how unbalanced our squad currently is.

We should never have signed Ballack and Sheva. The Sidwell signing is look increasingly a very strange one (if he can't get in the squad when Ballack and Lampard are out when can he expect a game???). Mikel too worries me greatly. Great potential but at times he just looks too laid back for his own good and at the moment he looks to me like a player believing all his own hype. But now if he carries on playing like this, we no longer have the option to play Diarra as that's another great young talent we've let go to one of our biggest rivals???

[bjd]

Agree about Sidwell. If he wasnt picked in the 16 yesterday he has no hope.

The midfield yesterday was poor i thought, very poor - ive never seen Essien so quiet.

I thought Sidwell was a like for like replacement for Lamps but it appears not, quite where he fits it now i have idea.

[german-blue]

If you compare these players its obisous that the "old" ons are better then the ones we have now ! But they all wanted to go, more or less.

[Jack]

I can see how the direct comparisons can make it seem as if the quality of the squad has dipped and to a certain extent I have to agree. Jose may be guilty at times of over-managing the content but we have to say his judgement for the past 3 seasons has been pretty decent so I'm prepared to go along with that for the time being.

What I feel is patently obvious and had been so all pre-season (yes the pre-season that caused so many arguments here) is that our form is poor. The team wasn't very good in pre-season and some of us worried openly about that. That self-same form has continued into the season proper - it's exactly what I saw at Villa Park yesterday. You could have super-imposed yesterdays game onto the game at Ibrox - a few flashes of some sort of form, but mostly slow-moving, deliberate attacks and the opposition running at us and causing all sorts of problems.

Most on here rubbished the lack of form in pre-season as just that - pre-season. Well things haven't improved much since then apart from 20 minutes at Reading and 20 minutes at Villa. Other than that we've been really average. Malouda looks ok, SWP has his moments, Pizarro is good on the ball, but really it's football by numbers. If we're going to play a more expansive game this season we need Joey Cole to play, we need Scott Sinclair to be somewhere near the 1st team, and we need our midfield to realise that without Frank some other bugger has to get somewhere near the opposition goal!

[Barn]

One other quick point on this if I may; Wenger (yes the sweet buying, child loving old fella up there in the north of London), if you compare the people he got rid of to those that replaced them they look like relegation fodder, but if you give those players a chance maybe it's the right thing. Consider what those that have left have done since compared to their replacements:

Viera - Fabregas

Petit - Gilberto Silva

Pires - Rosiky

Henry - Van Persie (remains to be seen)

Ashley Cole - Clishy ?????

Just a thought that sometimes it's better to move people on for the good of the team.

[barak81]

I have to say i think are squad is pretty strong but what we are missing is the creativity we had in are first two seasons under Jose. And i mean creative flair although its a word thats starting to get to me a bit on here now.

The main thing as i see it is we used to have robben and duff on the wings who would absaloutly terrorise deffences, could come inside or go out side and just twist deffenders in circles all day long. We looked good, it was effective and there was a lot of room for the likes of lamps to opperate. Then moving in the second season duff lost form and robben was injured a lot but cole turned up the heat and provided the creatvie flair influnce and speed to our game if you like.

Now like it or not SWP is not now or ever will be as good a footballer as those 3 were/are (because some one has stolen the real damien duff) Malouda is a different type of player all together so i dont want to put him in there with them. but as good as SWP is doing and it is exceptional! for my money he still makes the wrong call to offten. Ok its the call that i would disagree with so it comes down to oppinion.

Basicaly the first two have moved on and the other isnt starting. I really hope scot sinclare becomes the player we all hope him to be because IMO right now on the wings we'r not what we were

Every where else we are fine and dandy IMO

[Nibs]

One other quick point on this if I may; Wenger (yes the sweet buying, child loving old fella up there in the north of London), if you compare the people he got rid of to those that replaced them they look like relegation fodder, but if you give those players a chance maybe it's the right thing. Consider what those that have left have done since compared to their replacements:

Viera - Fabregas

Petit - Gilberto Silva

Pires - Rosiky

Henry - Van Persie (remains to be seen)

Ashley Cole - Clishy ?????

Just a thought that sometimes it's better to move people on for the good of the team.

The thing is Barn, Wenger really does seem to have the knack of knowing when to let the players go and the knack of getting replacements that in many cases turn out even better. He has off-loaded the likes of Vierra, Petit, Pires, Overmars and now Henry but probably all at the right time - after their best playing days were behind them.

He now has the foundations of a very good and young side (keeper excepted - thank God they didn't get Carol off us as well).

[Barn]

I know what you're saying and to an extent I agree, I just cannot stand the number of people that are prepared to knock JM. He's had massive funding at Chelsea but still there are an awfull lot of managers that could not have turned us into the team JM has. Christ, we've won the title twice!!!

I'm not that naive that I think we should always judge our current position against the team that just escaped relegation to the 3rd division, but we are still challenging for everything, when that stops happening if he's still getting the backing of the board then I'll agree that JM has ruined our squad, but let's give it a chance to happen first shall we???

[c3blu]

Barn,

i'm not calling for JM's head, and this is'nt a knee jerk reaction to our defeat at Villa. Jose'e the best and most successful manager we have ever had. I also said that some of the players i mentioned left the club for non-footballing reasons(money mainly, except Crespo who could'nt settle). The simple question i was asking is do people think our squad has got better or worse in terms of player quality over the last 2/3 yrs. We know JM may not be responsible for some of the signings(Ballack/Shevchenko) so this is'nt aimed ownly at him but the club in general. With the exception of this summer when we made some money in the transfer market in that 2/3 yrs we still have a massive net outlay. So by rights with such a massive net outlay the quality in the squad should have gone up, unfortunetly IMO its gone down.