Just looking at the team we have put out in the Europa against Besiktas and it occurs to me that we have probably never had such strength in depth before in our entire history. Yes it remains to be seen how good we are in league terms and the likes of Bale, Modric and Van der Vaart were a class above what we have now, but even when they were here we never had this strength in depth. I think it's true to say that we have not seen the best from our squad as yet, with all the changes of manager we cannot expect much more.In my view we can only get better from here on in and injuries which have nobbled us in the past will not be quite so significant as they were. This is a proper squad with great depth and if we can develop 2 or 3 stars from within, then we can produce results far better than our recent expectations. Time for a little dance.
Benteleb possibly, Capoue? do you think we can develop one from what we have or we just need a new player?
Carroll's probably the closest that we've got and Pritchard is a slightly different kind of one. I'd be tempted to cash in on someone and bring one in. Paulinho looks well out of it at the moment.
Potentially Mason as well perhaps? I'd happily sell one of Paulinho or Dembele (please oh please let it be the Brazilian) as well as potentially a CB - I'm thinking Kaboul or Chiriches, probably the Romanian - in January if it meant we could get a proper striker in.
We have 20-25 good players but lacking 2-3 quality players. Other than Lloris and possibly Vertonghen and Walker we don't really have any clear first choice players in any positions.
I'd say that Rose is at the moment too, King. He's playing far better than Davies. Fazio is putting in a claim for a starting place tonight. Chiriches isn't.
Strength? We have a very dodgy defence and no strikers. We have tippy-tappy football, but no end product. And we have a manager who appears not to understand when to make the right substitution. Against a half-decent side, we would have been humiliated, tonight.
I remain hopeful we can translate our deep squad into a good season. My hopes have taken a dent or two so far, but it's all to play for. It's an interesting sidelight to see how Arsenal's season compares to ours. They're strong where we're weak, in established high profile players with impressive pedigrees (Sanchez, Ozil, Cazorla, Mertesacker) playing in a well established system, and weak where we're strong, in depth, size and strength. Fazio, Chadli, Bentaleb, Dembele, Kaboul, Dier, Kane are all notably big and strong. It's a hell of a test for Pochettino, really.
We should ditch Paulinho, the guy is either: A - chuffing useless at football B - has no desire to play for Spurs and therefore doesn't give a **** In terms of creativity i think we should promote from within. Mason looked tidy, i like Carroll too, lets see how he does for a bit at Swansea. Maybe we could fastrack Onomah somehow.
It wasn't dodgy v goons,but that was the first choice defence,last nights was dodgy,but it was under relentless pressure,because our midfield was rubbish and we did'nt have a striker who could hold the ball, as for Soldado,sell him Please!!!
Kind of echoing what KH said in regards to having a number of good players but only a few quality ones. Lloris is the only player I'd say is actually world class right now, when looking at the world's best keepers, he has to be mentioned, simple as that. We then have a few players who can certainly reach exciting levels, although a slow start this year we've seen how good Eriksen can be, Lamela also has star quality in him, Chadli looks to be finding his feet, Vertonghen (and Kaboul) on form can match up with the best of CB's and when Adebayor wants to turn up and actually put a shift in there aren't many better but all these guys are either lacking consistency, confidence or just some sort of spark to get them going. Capoue is proving to be a real asset now though, our first choice CM in my opinion. If Poch can find a way - and I believe he can - to get these players to realise their potential and work well as a team then we can be in for a great season, not many squads in Europe can field two different teams that contain a large number of internationals so we're definitely blessed in the squad depth area but we just need a few to step up and take command of games like the likes of Bale, Luka and Rafa did.
Just don't know where we are going wrong,we should be dominating games with the players we have,but we were lucky not to overun last night,and it's not the first time,the goons should have beaten us but the defence played a blinder,and we seem to stuggle every game so far
I don't understand it either. Manager after manager has the same problems, problems those same guys don't seem to have at other clubs. People will say "well its Levy then" but how much of an effect does he have on a day to day basis on the players gelling or being on/off form? Not a lot i'd wager Something is toxic in the club, somewhere.
