This is precisely what I'm worried about. The fact that our two most experience players are now Adebayor and Soldado is frightening. You cannot overstate the importance of having a wise old head around the dressing room and training ground to nurture the development of the deluge of young talent now at Spurs.
Look at Cambiasso's influence on Leicester's season, Carrick's at United, Fabregas at Chelsea. Or look at Davids and Parker's impacts at us.
I agree - we're pretty well stocked in all areas, but with an absolute dearth of leaders and role models (in footballing terms). It was telling, for example, that Kyle Walker's farewell message to Kaboul emphasised how much he'd learnt from him on the training ground. Irrespective of how many lines Kaboul crossed, I highly doubt he fell out with every single employee at the club - in which case he was probably quite happy to guide players like Walker through the ropes of defending (apparently the tuition was a 2-way process though, with Kyle imparting his knack of switching off entirely and getting caught out of position

).
That's why I'd love to bring in a player like Bender or Biglia to sit in the centre of midfield. Both still have their best years ahead of them but have bags of experience both domestically and internationally.
De Rossi would be a dream but never going to happen. Maybe Srna from Shaktar to add that little bit of know-how?
Either way, McCarthy solves neither of these problems. Didn't impress me much last year and one of the reasons his first season was so impressive was that he was playing next to an old head in a surprisingly good vein of form, Gareth Barry, which further proves my point.