by Royalee »
21 Jul 2008 17:10
andrew1957 Hoop Blah The answer to the dilemma is a bit of both though isn't it?
You buy in a few players who are pretty proven at the level your playing at, and who hopefully have the potential to step up to the next level if you get there, and you pad out the squad with your youngsters so that the proven players don't break the bank.
Where we've gone wrong over the last couple of seasons is in blooding our youngsters sufficiently to really have an idea of how they're likely to step up when given the chance. That maybe because their time hasn't quite come or maybe because they're just not looking good enough.
One thing is for sure though, until they're given a chance here we'll never really know.
Yes except that SC has said he wants to reduce the first team squad from 24 to 18 or so and it still stands at 19 - even after the loss of Kitson so unless more go cannot see many coming in either. Clearly if say Harper, Shorey, Hunt and Lita all go we will need some more experienced players.
My squad cull:
Hunt
Harper
Duberry
Gunnarsson
Bennett
Sodje
Golbourne
Sonko
Fae
Andersen
Church
Hamer
Bozanic
Davies
Robson-Kanu
Illugason
Henry
This would then leave us with a squad of 16:
GKs: Hahnemann, Federici
FBs: Shorey, Murty, Rosenior
CBs: Pearce, Bikey, Ingimarsson
WMs: Convey, Kebe
CMs: Matejovsky, Karacan, Cisse
CFs: Doyle, Lita, Long
This is a tight squad but one with no real visible weak links if I'm being fair to Karacan, Rosenior and Cisse.
Bring in a top class winger, a decent full back as cover for Shorey and a quality defensive midfielder if Cisse or Karacan aren't up to it and we'd be alright when you consider both Cisse and Bikey can play midfield or central defence if required. Add a centre forward who can play the Kitson role and we'd be sorted and that would only take us up to 20 players - cover for internationals and injuries without having too massive a squad, plus the average age looks healthy.
Of course Coppell won't do anything like this though.