Was about to post something mean about Quansah but changed my mind.
We were seriously interested to bring in Micky van de Ven last summer so the plan was never to go into this season with 4 CBs. It’s simply not enough for potentially 60 games a season.
I’d imagine this was to do with Gomez potentially leaving though, if it’s true.
It’s enough, when your manager isn’t too reluctant to trust other players to rotate among them.
Were we? I know there were rumours of of interest before he went to Spurs but that was two years ago.
For most teams four centre backs is normal. Whether we have the desired quality is up for some debate though. And the other factor is we’ve no one in the youth teams who currently looks close to making the grade as even an emergency fifth option, let alone on a pathway to being part of the first team squad.
Against Southampton maybe. Other than that not many opportunities to start Quansah in big games. He had some bad games under Klopp already and didn’t improve this season.
4 CBs will never be enough for 60+ games. We’ve been blessed with Virgil who was almost injury free for 7 years if it wasn’t for Pickford.
How many CBs with such a injury record do you know?
Small squads don’t work in the top flight anymore. Not with the two (potentially four) extra games in the CL.
Let’s do the maths:
League Cup – 7 games maximum
FA Cup – 6 games maximum
Champions League – 17 games maximum
Premier League – 38 games
That’s a maximum of 68 games, yes. However, we’re not managed by Amorim so we can get by with two centre-backs per game for the vast majority of games. That’s 34 games per centre-back if you spread them out evenly, or 3060 minutes (not including extra time, etc.). That’s not too bad, and it’s something you can use to keep your 4 players happy. However, you have to actually use them regularly, and that’s also assuming you don’t involve any youth players. If you add a fifth player into that mix, that’s 2448 minutes per player, which is quite a fair bit below what most players would hope to be playing.
I think Nallo is meant to be close? That’s more Sweetie’s job though, right @Sweeting ?
I don’t think he’s close personally. I’m impressed by his maturity, captaining the U21 team at 17, but I think he hasn’t become that dominant force at that level you would expect of someone trying to force their way into the first team.
Virgil has played 41 games already this season.
Do we have a 12 point lead in the league, are we winning the CL League stage or are we reaching the League Cup final with Virgil ‘34 games’ van Dijk?
4 senior CBs are not enough anymore.
I mean you’re just going the other direction now and proving my point though? That he’s played so many games means there will likely be fewer minutes for the others? I’m confused…
In 19-20 we won it with Lovren and Matip as our 3rd and 4th choice who started fewer than 20 league games between them and little to nothing in the way of back up beyond them
The following year Ake was City’s 4th choice CB and played only about 10 games. The year after they retained the title and again had their third and 4th choices (Stones and Ake) play a similar number of games.
Most teams who carry more than senior 4CBs are teams who either have a shale that requires more (what City morphed into) or have serious issues with at least one of their group that they’ve addressed by buying more.
Or, let’s take a season where we did play pretty much the maximum number of non-replay games: 2021-22.
(Not sure why Transfermarkt had them on separate bits)
Note that I’m not sure how many of those minutes Gomez even played centrally as opposed to on the right.
What’s next? 2 senior RB enough? How about LB? How about every single position?
Number alone is not the full story. If Konate or Gomez had the same condition and fitness as VVD, I wouldn’t mind having only 3 or 4 center-backs, and Quansah is good enough to be our fourth choice. However, having two injury-prone center-backs in Konate and Gomez is a concern ( someone might say Gomez was available for the full season last year, the truth is that he’s been injured for around a third of the season each year for the past decade; one fit year doesn’t change that)
If we keep the same group of center-backs as this season, I’m a bit worried. Although Konate has better fitness this season but we’ve still already had many occasions this season where we’ve only had two fit center-backs and have to use Endo as CB. Expecting a new signing with good fitness conditions is logical thinking.
Ibou was doing fine this season until that petulant prick Endrick took out his frustrations on him.
The secret to avoiding some injuries; especially for defenders; might be in how they actually play the game. We know VVD never throws himself about on the pitch each game… well not as much as Gomez and Ibou… and if these combative actions are replicated by them each day in training; and these are big guys remember; maybe their bodies, without enough rest in-between bouts of exertion, is suffering because of it…
Not sure of specific names but… if we buy wide players or a forward they need pace. That’s a game changer as shown by PSG.
They also need to be able to do something with it.
Doku was a perfect example of someone against us.
I nearly added that! But it means Cherki is a no out wide for me.
I also expect us to do some trading out to get people in - Nunez, Diaz, Morton, Kelleher.
Traore is poster boy for it pace of Usain Bolt with no end product.
It should be assumed that we want to sign people who can play. Otherwise we can assemble a collection of Olympic sprinters for pennies.
So, assuming they can play…
Put me down for pace. Our attack is getting slower, and with the anticipated exits, it will get slower again. Let’s get some pace in the side to put the shits up them.
I think we could use a player like Cherki too, as his dribbling, skill and vision will be invaluable in the final third. But in addition to a player like that, we need pace!
Pace is brilliant when you have space in behind however, you also need tricky dribblers for when we play teams that are mid or low block, be brilliant if we could find someone who has both attributes
