Bench quality

[cosmicway 1,333]

Torres is respect.

But he came to CFC as slightly second hand.

Also he is not so young. He is 30 (birthday 20 March) - that's about as much as strikers go.

His partner of early days in Atletico, Nikolaidis, was much the better player -if we look at the entire carreers of both- but Nikolaidis who was also a striker was 31 and Torres was 20. So the power man was Torres and Nikolaidis the assist player. Nikolaidis retired soon after.

[BlueLyon 9,359]

IMO our squad is almost as good as good as in 2006 except for our strikers..

We are nearing that level, but still we are far from it in many areas. First it was just Torres and Mikel, now its Ramires, Willian and Oscar who are frustrating to watch in 2014. We seriously lack consistency and Willian at age 25 (nearing prime) should take give more to the team in attacking third. Oscar is going through some kind of bad form (possibly due to concentration on WC), but Rambo is just underperforming ever since Matic arrival. He offered much more (even goals here and there) but recently he is playing realy bad.

Our passing is superbly shit too, considering we have all those good expensive players, our game should be more connected. Its more than just a striker. LB and CM too at least. And our bench still doesnt do it for me. On paper, we have good one yes. But soon as we dont have 1st eleven players, Schurrle, Salah, Mikel dont do it here realy. Not for the money paid. Schurrle apart from few games, simply disapears in games and Mikel offers nothing when we are losing. Competion and alternatives are something that bench usualy gives. Our bench gives little of that. Looking at Rm bench (Isco/Di Maria, Khedira, Ilara,...) or Bayern (Kroos/Schweini/Thiago/Martinez, Shaqiri, Muller...) gives completely different options. They give competition to first team, they offer improvement, they give goals when brought on. We dont need big names or spend big money on bench players, but we need the right players there. Schurrle, Willian, Salah cost us over 60mio and right now I dont see where did that money go. For that money you get Reus and Salah for example. We buy buy buy and we dont know what for. We bough Moses and loaned him out, bought Salah and...for what? Moses could do the job Salah is doing right now. We sign way too many expensive decent players (Willian, Schurrle) instead of spending some more on one and get what you pay for. Willian and Schurrle didnt play bad realy, but you would expect more for fucking 50mio that was price they cost us.

Its one thing when older player underperforms ala Cole or Lampard who is going to be replaced sooner than later. But its another thing when very expensive player who was just bought performs bad like Willian is concerning. Im not saying we should spend crazy in summer and replace half the team, but we should buy quality and not quantity. Real players and not some expensive wannabes.

Game vs AV just proves it, first team plays bad and there is no one on the bench to make even smallest improvement or change.