All this talk of squad depth. How much do we actually need?

[The_Rev]

It's transfer silly season right now, rumours everywhere but barely any deals will get done for a couple of weeks while players and managers are on holiday.  However, I think it's obvious that while we've got a very good first XI at the club the squad is sorely lacking in depth.   How much do we actually need to be competitive? 

Looking at the season just gone Aston Villa  played 41  times.  38 in the league,  2 in the EFL cup and 1 in the FA Cup.  Early exits from both cup competitions really did mean we could focus on the league from January onwards and I think the run of incredible form in the second half of the season benefited from that.    However we might end up playing a lot more football next year.  As a point of reference West Ham play their 57th (I think) game of the season tomorrow night (38 in the league, 1 in the EFL cup, 3 in the FA Cup and 15 in Europe.   Manchester City play their 60th (38 league, 3 EFL cup, 6 FA cup and 13 in Europe) at the weekend when they face Inter in the Champions League final. 

I presume Emery and his staff are planning to go deep in the cup competitions next season.  The club must be expecting to play 50+ times and with Europe there may be some far flung away trips too.  West Ham didn't seem to do too badly on that front this season, they played Danish (two clubs), Belgian and Dutch opposition but they did have to go to Romania and Cyprus too.  Emery must know the kind of mix he needs between experienced pros and youth/fringe players to play such a schedule given he's basically done it his entire career but it's food for thought when we are getting linked with players who aren't necessarily better than those who are already here.  I guess that's obvious when you've already got a good team but is this the point where we raise the floor of the squad instead of the ceiling? 

[sne]

How deep is your squad?

[CarryOnVilla]

I don’t want my villa squad to be this kind of deep

 

or this kind of deep 

 

I want my villa this kind of deep 

[villa89]

24 minutes ago, The_Rev said:

I presume Emery and his staff are planning to go deep in the cup competitions next season.  The club must be expecting to play 50+ times and with Europe there may be some far flung away trips too.  West Ham didn't seem to do too badly on that front this season, 

Even with that limited travel they went from finishing 7th with 56 points to finishing 14th with 40 points and being caught up in a relegation battle, panic buying strikers in January. 

If we don't want our league position to collapse like that we need at least 5 new signings, probably even more than that. 

Edited June 6, 2023 by villa89

[duke313]

34 minutes ago, The_Rev said:

How much do we actually need to be competitive?

Enough to not have two keepers and youth players on a half empty bench.

[Pinebro]

When I was playing football manager I always found 17-18 to be the sweet spot.

20+ and squad was starting to get unhappy.

[The_Rev]

21 minutes ago, villa89 said:

Even with that limited travel they went from finishing 7th with 56 points to finishing 14th with 40 points and being caught up in a relegation battle, panic buying strikers in January. 

If we don't want our league position to collapse like that we need at least 5 new signings, probably even more than that. 

 

Thing is West Ham splurged big in the summer.  They dropped, what, a club record £51m on Lucas Paqueta, £35m on Scamacca, £30m on the Moroccan lad Aguerd,  £20m on Cornet from Burnley and a similar amount on Emerson from Chelsea.  Even with all that money spent in the summer as you said, they were down there with the dead men in January and had to buy Danny Ings to get them out of trouble. 

[Zhan_Zhuang]

12 minutes ago, villa89 said:

If we don't want our league position to collapse like that we need at least 5 new signings, probably even more than that. 

I agree and probably at least three of those players must improve the first eleven.

The likes of Bailey might get pushed out but he'll still get games; his form improved the last few games of the season too.

I'd like us to keep most of the players such as Dendoncker, Chambers, Traore for depth...

Seems like we need - 

LB (Moreno injured)

RB (Young gone)

MF (Tielemans)

FW x2 

[Condimentalist]

We've got a better crop of youth players to help pad the squad than West Ham.

That said, we still need 5 or 6 signings IMO, including at least 3 for the first choice 14/15, assuming the anticipated departures happen. 

Back up GK

RB/CB (elite) 

CM

AM / Wing (elite)

Second Striker / wing (elite) 

 

Edited June 6, 2023 by Condimentalist

[Wezbid]

The aim should be to compete in every competition until the end. If we didn't exit the cups so early, we may not have got Europe this season. 

I'd rather us build a squad that can compete an all fronts rather than maybe consider being knocked out of one cup to benefit us elsewhere. 

[Zatman]

Starters:

Right back 

Second striker/Playmaker

Squad so can go for a development players or experienced head:

Centre midfielder

Centre back

Keeper

Winger

Back up goalie

[RichW]

I expect at least 3 in but any more then that is going to rely on some outgoings first. I don't see much business being done early in the transfer window we are going to have to play the patient game this window.

Think we will see a forward, right back and midfielder signed first and then it will be a case of moving on Nakamba, Sanson, Olsen, Chambers and Traore before anybody else comes in. These won't be easy and will take time to move on bar probably Nakamba who Luton will probably want.

Also it remains to be seen whether Emery is going to keep or loan out Archer, Duran, Ramsey and Tim as I'd imagine he might want to keep them for the first half of the season at least. January has shown Emery will not spend money for the sake of it. 

[Guest av1]

1 hour ago, Zatman said:

Starters:

Right back 

Second striker/Playmaker

Squad so can go for a development players or experienced head:

Centre midfielder

Centre back

Keeper

Winger

Back up goalie

I’d sign another keeper just to be sure 

[kidlewis]

It’s potentially over 33% more football so our squad needs 33% more quality on the bench etc.

what I mean is we need to increase our first team quality players by 33%. 
 

At least

1 new striker, 1 new winger and 1 new CM and 1 new CB.

we need to replace Young and need another CB to give us four decent options.

need a good backup keeper too. 

 

so 6 new players of first team quality at what, £25m a pop? £150m required I reckon 

[MrBlack]

Taking the 50+ games as the bench mark were targeting... i'd expect a rotational squad of around 17 at a minimum. In theory that would give each of your 17 players an average of just over 32 games.

Obviously, some are going to get significantly more (Martinez in particular), and some will get significantly less, but that seems a comfortable figure to avoid fatigue.

You don't really want any player facing over 45 games in a season. And to rotate your outfield options evenly needs players that fit in a system when you make a change. So you then really have to increase the 17 to accommodate the variations, unless you have flexible players (konsa being able to cover right back, mcginn being able to cover kamara...etc)

 

I make it 2 keepers, 8 defenders,  3 DMs, 4 AMs, 3 strikers that we need, a potential squad of 20.

Which then becomes 18 because we save a defender with Konsa covering two spots, and save a DM with McGinn covering the backup there.

For how the squad looks in this scenario:

 

Matinez + new backup (league & fa cup keeper) - 2

Cash(or more likely new) + Konsa - 2

Konsa + Carlos - 1

Mings +  new - 2

Moreno + Digne - 2

 

Kamara / Luiz / Mcginn - 3

Ramsey / McGinn / Buendia / new - 3

 

Bailey/ Watkins / new - 3

 

So those 5 new spots...

Gk - ?

Rb - ?

Cb - Torres

Am - Tielemans or Kang-In

SS -  ?

 

1 more would be welcomed, anymore than that and we're into unhappy camper territory unless they're a youth prospect. 

[tomav84]

this was our bench vs brighton when aside from coutinho we had a fully fit squad. IMO we need 5-6 new players. 1-2 that will go straight into the starting 11 and another 4-5 squad fillers so that we're not filling the bench with kids and rubbish. i guess we may see the likes of tim, AJ, and archer filling some of the 'squad filler' roles

buendia - OK

carlos - decent

traore - shite

chambers - OK ish

young - gone

olsen - uber shite

dendonker - OK

revan - youth player

patterson - youth player

[TRO]

4 hours ago, The_Rev said:

It's transfer silly season right now, rumours everywhere but barely any deals will get done for a couple of weeks while players and managers are on holiday.  However, I think it's obvious that while we've got a very good first XI at the club the squad is sorely lacking in depth.   How much do we actually need to be competitive? 

Looking at the season just gone Aston Villa  played 41  times.  38 in the league,  2 in the EFL cup and 1 in the FA Cup.  Early exits from both cup competitions really did mean we could focus on the league from January onwards and I think the run of incredible form in the second half of the season benefited from that.    However we might end up playing a lot more football next year.  As a point of reference West Ham play their 57th (I think) game of the season tomorrow night (38 in the league, 1 in the EFL cup, 3 in the FA Cup and 15 in Europe.   Manchester City play their 60th (38 league, 3 EFL cup, 6 FA cup and 13 in Europe) at the weekend when they face Inter in the Champions League final. 

I presume Emery and his staff are planning to go deep in the cup competitions next season.  The club must be expecting to play 50+ times and with Europe there may be some far flung away trips too.  West Ham didn't seem to do too badly on that front this season, they played Danish (two clubs), Belgian and Dutch opposition but they did have to go to Romania and Cyprus too.  Emery must know the kind of mix he needs between experienced pros and youth/fringe players to play such a schedule given he's basically done it his entire career but it's food for thought when we are getting linked with players who aren't necessarily better than those who are already here.  I guess that's obvious when you've already got a good team but is this the point where we raise the floor of the squad instead of the ceiling? 

I think we was fairly fortunate with injuries and suspensions to key players.

Had we suffered a lengthy injury to Ollie or Tyrone, we would have been goosed, for Europe.

while we have secured 1.96 PPG which is a tremendous haul under UE.....watching games tells us one or two players struggled, at times.....and the need to strengthen is paramount.

There were a couple of times during last season, away to Wolves and at home to Leicester , where some quality help, would have been nifty.

We have come a long way in 7/8 months......but there is still much to do......we don't want to do, what we have done in the past, wait until there is a dip, before we act, ......"a stitch in time saves nine"

[tomsky_11]

Broadly two competitive options for every starting position, plus a good prospect/youth in each area.

And I wouldn't want us spending any money on anyone this summer that isn't better than (or at least on par with and provides a different profile to) our current first XI. I'd make an exception for bringing in good prospects in areas we'd struggle to improve on now, if we've dealt with the 3/4 positions I think we'll need to spend money on first.

Squad would look something like this:

Olsen and Chambers the weakest of the "2nd XI", but I wouldn't prioritise replacing them as both in positions that already have strong first choice and won't rotate as much as others, while Chambers can at least cover multiple roles.

Duran falls more into the prospect category at this stage, but think if we go big on a couple of adaptable forwards then I'm fine with him and Archer for depth.

[StefanAVFC]

I'd put Ramsey as top 5 on the team sheet right now, 1st XI

[HalfTimePost]

I think people expecting Ramsey and McGinn to be second choice by the end of the transfer window are going to be very disappointed with the business we're likely to do.