30 strikes me as a large squad for a club with our finances but Norway is right about needing depth to avoid the second half drop away we have had too often recently. If are able to "manage out" 3 or 4 players who are less likely to feature and then "churn" others if needed then we will probably have got it about right
I think the problem is more that we have too many average players. Lots of young players doesn't matter...it's just that our seniors are not good enough generally. Yeates, Garner, Dickinson, Mirfin, Jenkins and Forsyth are all not good enough to play consistently at this level or just don't really fit into our team.
Agree with all of that. Having depth and competition for players is nice, a nice little bonus to have, but actual quality, having genuine Championship standard players is what matters. You cant polish a turd and all that.
Exactly. If you can't have the luxury of 30 quality players like West Ham, then I'd rather have 15...even 11...rather than an average 30 man squad. We could easily sell 4 or 5 players, buy one good player...and it would be beneficial to us.
Under MM we had a very good first XI, better than this year's, but we had zero depth. Thus, in both seasons under Mackay, we had a very good first-half and then tailed away very badly. Our season under Dyche shows that you need a big squad if you want to do well, so in fact we do need an aspect of quantity at the club. Yes certain players will be allowed to leave like Bryan, Gilmartin, Mirfin etc. and Mapps will probably be sold, but this talk of letting up to 13 players leave is nonsense. Garner and Yeates are solid players, not first-team but you need them on a few occasions across a season, unless you bring someone of a better quality in (which I doubt will happen). If we use some of the Sordell money to buy a new striker to go with Deeney up front, I can see us having a solid season next year, around mid-table, doubt we'll trouble the play-offs as the like of Charlton and Wolves coming into the division will make it tight as always.
I hope we do find it easy to sell 4 or 5 players, I just keep thinking about Matt Sadler, his last game for us was boxing day 2008, in the 3 transfer windows that followed we desperately tried to sell him but not 1 club were willing to pay for him, so we had to keep loaning him out until his contract ran out.
You cant survive a season with too small a squad - injuries and suspensions are bound to happen - I agree - cut the nucleus of the squad for quality but then you have to have the numbers to get you through and we cannot afford a 25 man quality outfit
Well said Leo , it seems some people have short memories , too small a squad would be dangerous ,true we would see more youngsters pushed through, at the beginning of this season I was saying never mind the quantity we need quality . It would appear(as ever) I was wrong and Sean was right , a little more quality bought in this summer would be good , but we need to sustain at least a 27 man squad!
Yeah I agree with the general consensus on this . We could do with getting rid of a few midfielders to add a bit of quality but we don't want to be too thin if injurise or suspensions mount up. A difficult balance to get. There will definately be movement on this over the summer though...
Thats what loans are for. Plenty of clubs with normal sized squads use the loan system when they get injuries etc.
Dont forget Mitch soon the amount of loans will be curtailed due to new rules and regs, so we will need to have enough of a squad to get us through a season with potentially no loans ! Rules about loans of players are under review and final decisions I dont know if they have been made , but to plan ahead without them could prove a shrewd move! As cat 1 academies and clubs have to find an u18 and u21 teams next season this could mean prem loanees may be hard to come by!
It's a difficult balance, too small a squad and the risk of relying on unplanned and rushed loans is high - you just cannot sign a quality loan player very quickly. Alternative is a large squad with the costs and players not even getting to warm the bench. In an ideal world a first team squad of around 22 players would be about right with a couple of our youngsters who are not quite ready out on loan in the lower leagues getting vital experience and a few loan players in where we lack quality. But a few red cards and a couple of injuries and we have to bring someone back from loan or try to find a loan repacement..not easy!
I don't think that we need so many players. This season we have barely used our youth players except for Murray. There are quite a lot of young, homegrown players in our squad who are not on a lot of money...why waste them when they have potential? Whichelow did well last season, but we brought Yeates in....on fairly high wages. I would have been happy to see Whichelow and Mingoia get runs in the team. Unlike Yeates, who will no doubt continue his low fee, club hopping career...those two players could be valuable. In defence, I would be happy to see Adam Thompson, Lee Hodson or another youth player come in over Dickinson. Like Yeates, he is ok but high wages and not valuable. I don't think that he has enough to offer to us.
If we had a reserve team that actually played regular, competitive fixtures - as in days of yore - then I think we could get away with a squad of 24/25. The number of players we have who seem to do very little other than play in the occasional 'developmental squad' match is head-scratching to say the least.
Looking at the squad list, I would say 10 of those as recent academy graduates all of whom will not be bank breakers (Bond, Bennett, Thompson, James, Issac, Mingoia, Bryan, Wichelow, Assambolonga, and Massey) earlier in the season I would have included Murray there as well. Add into this a player with a long term injury (McGinn), that leaves us a 'core' of 19 players. If all 30 were seasoned pros on good contracts I would share the concern as it is I think we've got it right.
