Shocking lack of depth and what can we play in big games?

[Unionjack 7,531]

What Remy is is pretty good depth. He wasn't bought to be a star he was bought to be a solid replacement striker and to do a good job when hes brought on as sub. IMHO this he has done this OK. (Not sure about putting him in as RAM tho)

What hes not is a game changer or someone that we can use to offer us creative possibilities. And again IMHO we dont have ANYONE that can do that.

To say that the most our bench offers is a mirror copy would be giving too much praise to them. Our depth is very poor and its not only just happened.

Im at a loss as to why we dont seem to be able to have multiple GOOD options for each position. Theres alot of teams that have good players fighting to be a starter. We dont have that.

Mou said various times at the start of the past 2 seasons HE LIKES having selection problems. But what he says and what actually has occurred are 2 very different things.

Its not only our 1st XI that we have trouble with its our depth too.

[cadenza666 221]

Mourinho is the best manager in the world, no question.

but on this transfer window,, remember what the great man once said -

"No eggs, no omelettes. Some are more expensive than others, some give you better omelettes."

[chrismada9 1,948]

What amazes me is that in the window where there was a lack of strengthening by our rivals, last summer, we recruited astutely and we reaped the rewards almost instantaneously. Now that our rivals are strengthening - In the areas they needed to - we've chosen to sit back and rest on our laurels. No-one knows what the real story is, whether this is a Mourinho call, by trusting the youth (massive LOL) or the board's by being financially responsible it seems almost bizarre!

What's even more amazing, is that these two assumptions are positive for the club. Both of them would closely be following Financial Fair Play, we'd have a wide array of home grown talent, and there would be no cause for concern. There's too much money involved for clubs to even nurture talent anymore.. everyone just wants to spend big on top quality.

I'm a little cautious because this little charade we've put ourselves in, what with the lack of signings, silly little squabbles with club doctors causing them to be demoted from matches, and bad results.. this is similar to what caused Mourinho to leave us last time. Back then, there were disagreements with team selection before matches, and both Jose and Roman were in constant disagreement on which players to sign.

Surely this is not going to happen again! Jose's just signed a 4-year-deal so how can it? We'd have to pay out a few millions to even consider it!

Mark Lawrenson in the "predictions" page on the BBC website said this about Mourinho:

"He is the best manager in the Premier League but when he has a bad day, he has a really bad day - and it is never his fault."

[kmk108 1,186]

I can't imagine what this board would have been like if we would have lost to Swansea...

So far this season we haven't won a meaningless series of games, we didn't win a pretty much meaningless trophy, and we got a draw with 10 men and looked pretty good while being down to 10 men.

If we lose to City, I swear some people are going to be talking relegation.

[Essien19 1,415]

Mourinho is going to win us the title!

[sapper245 40]

What's even more amazing, is that these two assumptions are positive for the club. Both of them would closely be following Financial Fair Play, we'd have a wide array of home grown talent, and there would be no cause for concern. There's too much money involved for clubs to even nurture talent anymore.. everyone just wants to spend big on top quality.

I'm a little cautious because this little charade we've put ourselves in, what with the lack of signings, silly little squabbles with club doctors causing them to be demoted from matches, and bad results.. this is similar to what caused Mourinho to leave us last time. Back then, there were disagreements with team selection before matches, and both Jose and Roman were in constant disagreement on which players to sign.

Surely this is not going to happen again! Jose's just signed a 4-year-deal so how can it? We'd have to pay out a few millions to even consider it!

Mark Lawrenson in the "predictions" page on the BBC website said this about Mourinho:

"He is the best manager in the Premier League but when he has a bad day, he has a really bad day - and it is never his fault."

Didnt think Financial fairplay excisted any more. Like you said teams now have to have instant success so waiting for home grown/youth players to develope is not going to happen. It's not happening at Man u or Man C or Arsenal and it won't happen at Chelsea either, you might get the odd youth player like Loftus cheek or Solanke play in cup games but thats it.

[Blue Colored Sky 1,807]

We have our depth, players like Cahill, Willian, Oscar and Fabregas (partly) should be our depth while we should be looking for starting quality in CB, CM (bigger games) and RW. 3 players away from having very good first XI and squad depth.

[bigbluewillie 1,859]

What i like on here is that at least all or almost all and it's not just me recognise that there is all of a sudden there some serious serious problems in the camp, wether it's Jose, the squad, or even Roman, I don't know, we will ever really find out we never do.

Can I just go back the the players and my likes and dislikes, as my earlier post I stated imho I think Oscar is a complete waste of space, to lightweight, looks completely disinterested, how on earth did Jose ever get rid of Juan Mata? "he don't track back enough" give me a break, he had been brilliant for us and now for Manure he's a real number 10............so what does Jose do, get rid of the puppet master and keep the puppet, and then we get rid of DeBruyne and bring in Cuadrado, this all really hurts.

Is Jose starting to lose the plot? I personally think he's not the same manager as that left, amongst othe things he's lost a lot of his joviality, he looks all to agitated all the time, don't get me wrong I love Jose and always will just fear he might be losing it...............what do you think.

best Regards: JBD

[BlueLion. 21,491]

I don't think we have a lack of depth, tbh.

Goalkeepers: Thibaut, Begovic, Blackman

Full-back: Ivanovic, Azpilicueta, Baba, plus Ramires and Zouma if necessary.

Centre-back: Terry, Cahill, Zouma, Ivanovic, plus Mikel and Matic in an absolute emergency. Plus Stones looks likely to join us at some stage.

Midfield pivot: Matic, Fabregas, Mikel, Ramires, RLC, plus Zouma and Oscar if necessary.

Attacking midfielders: Hazard, Willian, Cuadrado, Oscar, Ramires, Fabregas, plus Remy and RLC if necessary.

Strikers: Falcao, Costa, Remy.

For me, the squad size and versatility is good enough. My concern is that the quality of the back-up players is actually worse than this time last year.

Schurrle > Cuadrado (goes without saying)

Cech > Begovic (Begovic is outstanding and has been our best player so far this season, but Cech is still one of the best in the world)

Luis > Baba (I've never actually seen Baba play, but let's be frank, Luis is still one of the best full-backs in the world...)

Falcao = Drogba (both are decent enough for 3rd choice forwards)

Now if we'd have replaced Luis with someone like Dani Alves (I know we weren't linked with him; I'm speaking hypothetically in terms of replacing players with better/similar quality footballers), Drogba with Griezmann, Schurrle with Reus, etc., we'd still have the best squad in the league. I maintain our first-choice, when in-form, starting XI is the best in the league, but our options from the bench have changed from being Cech-Luis-Ramires-Schurrle-Mikel-Remy-Drogba to Begovic-Zouma-Cuadrado-Falcao-Moses-Remy-Loftus Cheek. Our squad is suitably sized but the quality of our reserves just isn't if you want to defend a league title. Signing Baba and Stones gives us greater defensive options but our issues lie in midfield right now.

[Gappy 130]

Our issues may be Jose don't rotation enough.

He will play same squad no matter what

And when he need someone in the bench he'll pick same person in the different position.