ag6789 wrote:We don't lack squad depth, its injury affected depth that's the concern. If you lose 3 first choice players like Tierney, Partey and Tomi to long term injury, planning will be affected. These players were brought in to handle the bulk of the load and their covers are supposed to pick up the remaining . When it starts to get the other way round, then you've to revamp the whole strategy once again and that's not easy.
You're forced spend over the top to secure another player of similar quality and it causes problem within as whom to keep in the long run.
For example if Tierney were fit and robust, we didn't need to worry for the LB and a relative green horn like Tavares could develop on the side w/o much ado. But now we had to dole out another 30mil for Zinchenko, send Tavares on loan....A bunch unnecessary complexities. Getting Zinchenko is great but it is the circumstances that forced our hand that's the regret.
Mate thats pie in the sky. For a club like Arsenal, a tier 2 club in a league with 5 tiers, we cannot afford to have 2 players for each position our problem is that it takes 2 or 3 players to be out and we are screwed. Why are we screwed ? Its because the gap to the second string is too large.
It is EXACTLY down to squad depth although the missing word is Quality - Squad depth quality. No point having a 50 man squad if 30 of the players are shite as an example. what difference does "injury affected" make ? If a player is out through injury they are still out, the player coming in needs to step into a hole that probably they cannot fill. We do lack squad depth quality, if we lose Jesus we rely on Nketiah, if we lose Saka who can come in for him ? Now we have Saliba back if we lost White or Gabriel we have good cover, if we lose Tierney we have Zinchenko (who I do not rate at LB), who covers Tomiyasu when he is out, the drop in quality is alarming?
Lets look at the 2007-08 season, we just lost Thierry Henry, Adebayor was first choice but after him we had Eduardo who got 30 odd appearances, we had RVP who got 20 odd appearances that season and Bendtner who made 40. Thats quality in depth. Look at our midfield, we had Fabregas, Rosicky, Diarra, Flamini, Gilberto Silva, Diaby, again, quality in depth.