25 man squads in a pandemic

[majaco]

25 man squads are limiting individual squads and leading to unpredictability.  

 

Leicester, Crystal Palace and Liverpool are among clubs adversely affected.

 

For us, having lost Perreira,  Caglar, Castagne, Fofana, Justin, Amartey, Fuchs and Morgan at various times from our defence has been challenging.  Currently, Justin, Castagne and Fofana are out: three parts of a potentially world class defence.  Add in we lost N'didi when he stepped in as an emergency centre back.  Then there are the injuries to Praet, Vardy, Mendy, Maddison and Cenghis.  Professional athletes are b3ing stretched.

 

Our academy has not offered much new.  Yet we can still put out a team.  It seems like for this season of the pandemic and twice a week fixtures, c the squad size may have been more suitable at perhaps 28.    Under normal cirsubstances, managers keeping big squads happy was more difficult.

 

This is an intriguing season as we see the unpredictable as common place,  So far, we have coped brilliantly

[sdb]

Squad management is gonna have to be unreal for the next few months. Injuries killed us after the first lockdown at the business end of last season and I'm pretty fearful it's happening again.

[peach0000]

Liverpool have like three injuries. I can't stand how Liverpool are always mentioned when it comes to injuries. Pretty sure they are below average.

 

[majaco]

1 minute ago, peach0000 said:

Liverpool have like three injuries. I can't stand how Liverpool are always mentioned when it comes to injuries. Pretty sure they are below average.

 

Liverpool's defensive injuries have completely derailed them.  

 

Off the top of my head, not caring too much about Liverpool, I can think of at least six significant injuries they have had.

 

Justin's development is such that I found myself thinking that his injury might be as significant as Van Dijk's.  Then I remembered that if we have a fully fit squad, Justin might be on the bench.

[howie]

6 minutes ago, peach0000 said:

Liverpool have like three injuries. I can't stand how Liverpool are always mentioned when it comes to injuries. Pretty sure they are below average.

 

Probably more to do with their long term injuries, two nailed on starters ruled out for the season after a handful of games. 

[peach0000]

1 minute ago, majaco said:

Liverpool's defensive injuries have completely derailed them.  

 

Off the top of my head, not caring too much about Liverpool, I can think of at least six significant injuries they have had.

 

Justin's development is such that I found myself thinking that his injury might be as significant as Van Dijk's.  Then I remembered that if we have a fully fit squad, Justin might be on the bench.

 

Just now, howie said:

Probably more to do with their long term injuries, two nailed on starters ruled out for the season after a handful of games. 

This has been going round today on the premier league thread. Shows it quite well. Palace and Leeds are the teams that need to be properly complaining!

 

t

[majaco]

3 minutes ago, peach0000 said:

 

This has been going round today on the premier league thread. Shows it quite well. Palace and Leeds are the teams that need to be properly complaining!

 

t

Thanks for the added info.

 

Perhaps it shows how Liverpool are over reliant on one injured centre back.  We have three brilliant ones and Amartey is an able back-up.

[peach0000]

Just now, majaco said:

Thanks for the added info.

 

Perhaps it shows how Liverpool are over reliant on one injured centre back.  We have three brilliant ones and Amartey is an able back-up.

Yes, I will admit that they have got unlucky in the fact that all their injuries fell in one position. But they've just signed two new CBs so there's no reason to complain now. After all it's not like Liverpool fans to moan 

[Leicester_Loyal]

Bigger squad sizes would have probably just given the teams with more revenue to buy even more players and gain an even bigger advantage.

 

I think due to the Euros next season will be almost as tough for everyone as well. One thing teams can do to gain a slight advantage is sign a couple of talented youngers who don't count in the 25 man squad, that way they can be used in earlier cup rounds, and kept spare incase of injuries whilst also being blooded into the squad for the future.

[majaco]

Just now, peach0000 said:

Yes, I will admit that they have got unlucky in the fact that all their injuries fell in one position. But they've just signed two new CBs so there's no reason to complain now. After all it's not like Liverpool fans to moan 

They have been entitled for a long time.  Then they won the league.

 

Van Dijk transformed them.  Their injuries lasered in on centre  backs and midfielders as replacement centre backs.  But they had noone else near Van Dijk's quality.  If you picked the best four centre backs at Leicester and Liverpool, I think three would be Leicester players.

[majaco]

3 minutes ago, Leicester_Loyal said:

Bigger squad sizes would have probably just given the teams with more revenue to buy even more players and gain an even bigger advantage.

 

I think due to the Euros next season will be almost as tough for everyone as well. One thing teams can do to gain a slight advantage is sign a couple of talented youngers who don't count in the 25 man squad, that way they can be used in earlier cup rounds, and kept spare incase of injuries whilst also being blooded into the squad for the future.

I think we should be signing a couple of young talented home grown players in the summer

[Chocolate Teapot]

3 minutes ago, majaco said:

I think we should be signing a couple of young talented home grown players in the summer

Next year we could feasibly have 8 homegrown / academy/ leuven players in the squad.

 

Iversen, VDC, Thomas, KDH, Hamza, Barnes, Sowah, Tavares. 

[UHDrive]

9 minutes ago, majaco said:

I think we should be signing a couple of young talented home grown players in the summer

That would be super! A CB, RW, CAM, Striker please. Not being greedy. If I had to pick the homegrown signings for those positions I'd love for it to be the Striker and CAM, a good english spine for the team. 

[TJB-fox]

1 hour ago, peach0000 said:

Liverpool have like three injuries. I can't stand how Liverpool are always mentioned when it comes to injuries. Pretty sure they are below average.

 

That’s just not true is it. I understand fans getting annoyed at the situation because Liverpool are the ones being talked about in the media. But, they have had a **** tonne of injuries 

[Gunnlaugson's Rizlas]

Maybe the premier league should introduce an ‘injured reserve’ list like they have in the NFL, where if a player is out long term you can remove them from the active squad list and sign a replacement until they are fit again. 

[peach0000]

4 minutes ago, TJB-fox said:

That’s just not true is it. I understand fans getting annoyed at the situation because Liverpool are the ones being talked about in the media. But, they have had a **** tonne of injuries 

It's 5, 3 key long term ones. Like I say an average amount. Sorry I forgot about Naby Keita 

Edited 12 February 2021 by peach0000

[dmayne7]

But even on the Leeds and Palace list there's a couple of players who probably aren't even in their 25.

 

Liverpool have definitely had a lot of injuries and to key players but even with Gomez and Van Dijk out for ages, they should be complaining much. They went into the season with 3 centre backs. They're one of the biggest clubs in the world so they could have easily got a very good defender to come in and happily sit on the bench. It's the same as Man City losing Laporte last year when they'd also let Kompany go. Sure there's an element of bad lack but ultimately clubs with that resource and allure can only blame their own ineptitude in terms of recruitment. No excuses.

 

We've lost so many key players for several games this season where it's basically Kasper, Evans, Youri and Barnes that haven't been out for any significant period of time. I'd like to see the other teams cope as well without the best RB and best CDM in the league, and a striker as good as anyone's missing a chunk of games. 

[deanolegend1989]

9 hours ago, majaco said:

Liverpool's defensive injuries have completely derailed them.  

 

Off the top of my head, not caring too much about Liverpool, I can think of at least six significant injuries they have had.

 

Justin's development is such that I found myself thinking that his injury might be as significant as Van Dijk's.  Then I remembered that if we have a fully fit squad, Justin might be on the bench.

On Justin’s form this season, he would walk into our team regardless.

Riccy isn’t anywhere near as good as he was(hopefully he CAN get it back). These ACLs ruin careers so I just hope Justin and Ricardo can both get back to their best, that’s the main thing!

 

 

Weve had the worst injury list of any team , including Liverpool. We are a Youri and Harvey injury away from our entire team out at times. Shocking bad luck.

 

Weve coped fairly well so far but it’s ultimately going to cost us and worried Justin missing today will cost us vs Pool.

Im hoping we can hold for the next 5 games (Pool, Villa, Arsenal and the EL double header). Make it through that with no more injuries, get Timmy and Little Wes back and relax the stress.

Then March we have some ok fixtures Brighton and Shef U we should cope with them back too and can get through to April and Praet will be back to add depth with just Justin recovering, gives us a chance in the final 10 game run in and the deep ends of the cups. Obviously IF(seems like a big IF) NO MORE INJURIES!!

[HighPeakFox]

JJ being out is a massive blow, but today, I'm not sure it will make a fat lot of difference.

[Hoopla10]

I tend to disagree that 28 men squad is the solution. In the same way I disagreed with Klopp and co's push for 5 subs. It's the wrong fight. The solution imo is push the Euros back another year (or cancel them) then extend the season a month (and maybe a half) into the summer. Saying it's okay to have 28 men is to admit there's a problem. To admit players will get injured (possibly endangering their careers), not for any other reason than the Euros. It gives more power to wealthy clubs who can financially support those extra three players (and the standard of those players). Smaller teams will almost always want to put out their strongest team. So they'll put out their first team and then burn players like matches. So ultimately adding those 3 players doesn't fix the problem, instead just band-aids over it.  

  

Edited 13 February 2021 by Hoopla10

[majaco]

Amazing how we coped with the injuries today