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- Re: The case against signing players in Jan
The thing I disagree with in your post is in that 9 you're including players who either aren't at the club or were known in January to be out for the season.
We started the season with 7 - Osho, Mengi, Burke, Lockyer, Potts, Andersen and Bell. I agree that's ample cover, with Mengi planned to be a development player and Potts injured but a last choice back up when fit.
Before the January window the situation had changed, Lockyer is now out for at least the season, Andersen is injured for who knows how long, but long term. Same for Potts.Burke is unreliable, fitness wise but Mengi is looking good.
So coming in to January we have:
Bell, Mengi, Osho, Burke as fit centre backs. Only one is left footed, and one is injury prone.
4 fit players is not enough cover for 3 positions, especially as we're now expecting them to make high intensity runs* all game. Bell has also played all summer and pretty much every game this season.
We knew we needed a centre back, hence the attempt to sign Abbey.
We can't count Holmes in this season's numbers as he went straight back to Reading.
We let Giles go, and although he's versatile, Hashi is primarily cover for the wing back slots.
So we've come out of the window with 3 centre backs out long term, one injury prone and 3 others who can play there, not including one bloke who has been signed as cover for every defensive position, meaning one injury or suspension and we're out of cover again.
I've not included JJ in this as I don't think he'll feature at CB again, in this league at least. So he's wing back cover, and has looked good tbf.
We haven't replaced Lockyer and that is the issue. Hashi is not a replacement for Giles and Lockyer and Andersen and Potts and Burke and now Bell.
We needed a new CB, preferably experienced, and we knew it.
We do also need a CDM with Marv out long term, and I suspect we knew that as well. We have plenty of midfielders for the 2 positions but outside of ASL and Barkley theres a massive drop in quality.
We've actually had less injuries than a lot of sides this season, but we don't have the squad depth of some of them. Imo it was madness to leave a squad space open
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