These days people are always talking about the need for a squad of 23 to 25 players. Yet this is a fairly recent thing; for many years the most successful teams existed on squads of significantly lower numbers. Paul Scholes was reminiscing recently about Manchester Unitedâs first couple of Premier League titles in the mid-nineties and how they were won with squads of around the 17 to 18 mark, and that included emerging talents from the youth team. Fair enough, the big teams playing in Europe these days have a much larger number of games so squad rotation is more necessary, but for a team like Pompey? Why do we need more than 20 players â or even as many as 20? We donât have a reserve team so some of them will get very little, if any, match practice â last year our reserve goalkeeper didnât get a single game. People bemoan the fact that we hardly ever had a full bench last season but 7 reserves is just ridiculous and I donât think having only 4 or 5 on the bench is that much of a disadvantage. Am I missing the point and just being a grumpy old man (I know I leave myself wide open on that one), or have got out of hand?
Couldn't agree more ....I'm probably not as old as you, but i can be just as grumpy if I put my mind to it
I agree 100% with you leading! 7 on the subs bench is crazy talk - i have never understood it and we should go back to the classic 3 subs (goalie optional).
I see where you are coming from LFIH !! To my mind, what we need at FP this season, is QUALITY not QUANTITY. The only time we could be in a difficult position, is following any injuries or suspensions. Even then, we can surely call up some of our youngsters such as Ryan Williams, Sam Magri, or Lewis Stockford to give them the opportunity to shine ? It worked o.k. last season with Joel Ward & to a certain extent with Nadir Ciftci. We shall see.............
http://www.football-league.co.uk/footballleaguenews/20110721/league-clubs-to-reduce-subs-from-7-to-5_2293334_2398424 Think this link will be the death of this thread
