Huge squad - too big?

[bazza76]

with a couple of more signing, we will be more like an international squad than a club squad, lots of options, I personally wont be complaining.
But, one thing I will say, if we keep adding so many options every season to the squad, it will take the squad time to settle into Rafa's ideas at the start of the season, arguably being the reason for our slow starts.
I long for the day when we only need to bring in two or three players in an already accomplished squad.

[JPK]

You can never have a too big squad unless it's full of "galacticos".
Chelsea have a big squad and even there squad was stretched at times last year.With competition in every position we will be the freshest again at the end of the season.All we need is a good start

[magicalbarnes]

What a fantastic squad that is. Get on the quality of that midfield!!

Especially if Kewell has a good season

[AFII]

GK Edwin van der Sar
2 DF Gary Neville (captain)
3 DF Patrice Evra
4 DF Gabriel Heinze
5 DF Rio Ferdinand
6 DF Wes Brown
7 MF Cristiano Ronaldo
9 FW Louis Saha
10 FW Wayne Rooney
11 MF Ryan Giggs (vice-captain)
13 MF Park Ji-Sung
14 FW Alan Smith
15 DF Nemanja Vidić
16 MF Michael Carrick
17 MF Nani
18 MF Paul Scholes
19 FW Giuseppe Rossi
20 FW Ole Gunnar Solskjær
21 FW Dong Fangzhuo
22 DF John O'Shea
23 MF Kieran Richardson
24 MF Darren Fletcher
26 DF Phil Bardsley
27 DF Mikael Silvestre
28 DF Gerard Piqué
29 GK Tomasz Kuszczak
33 MF Chris Eagles

MF Owen Hargreaves
MF Anderson


no bigger than that and they are all a bunch of ****s

Some of them will probably leave before the end of the transfer window.

Saha, Smith, Heinze, Rossi, Richardson, Bardsley, Silvestre, Pique and Eagles have been linked with other clubs.

That would take them down to around 20 players.

[NICKZS]

Especially if Kewell has a good season

We really missed Kewell last season. I think he was our best player in the second-half of the 2005/2006 season, which a lot of people seem to forget. The benefit now, however, is that we always have Babel to come in and hopefully give us some much needed creativity if/when Kewell gets injured, whereas before we had Zenden.

[The_weatherman]

You can never have a too big squad unless it's full of "galacticos".
Chelsea have a big squad and even there squad was stretched at times last year.With competition in every position we will be the freshest again at the end of the season.All we need is a good start

I actually wasn´t going to moan over it being to big, we could use some defensive cover and a winger but looking at that midfield I worry a bit that it could be a bit crowded, still more is better than less. Chelsea had a godd squad but they didn´t use all of it, used Essien at the back instead of some youngsters, I think Rafa would rather but a youngster (Paletta) if that situation presented itself to us.

And as has been said, there has been some serious and consistent improvement in overall squad quality since Rafa took over - he is definately doing the right things IMO.

[Woobus]

If we want to be competing in all competitions like United and Chelsea then we need a squad this big. If you look at United and Chelsea last year then you will see there squads were not big enough to compete in so many competitions near the end of the season.

[kop-al-74]

Keeping our central midfielders all happy will be a bit tricky imo.But as long as we win and are doing well,no one can really complain.

[Morph]

---------------Reina
-----Finnan Carra Agger Aurelio
--Pennant Gerrard Mascherano Kewell
-------------Kuyt Torres

--------------Carson
--Arbeloa Hyypia Defender Riise
-Benayoun Alonso Sissoko Babel
----------Voronin Crouch

Seriously we're one defender short of having two teams and that's not including: Insua, Paletta, Leto, Lucas and whatever other kids you want to throw in.

I don't see Paletta as suitable backup yet, so i think Rafa might go for one more signing before the window is shut.

[RedReet]

II'd rather have a big squad with quality players coming in for each other rather then 11 1st teamers and another 15 gob****es,like we've had for a long time now.

It also leaves us with reasonably valuable assets that we should be able to sell on, rather than loan out until their contract expires like we used to do. Just look how much we generated from sales this year.

[The_weatherman]

Delete

[The_weatherman]

Good point!

[The_weatherman]

---------------Reina
-----Finnan Carra Agger Aurelio
--Pennant Gerrard Mascherano Kewell
-------------Kuyt Torres

--------------Carson
--Arbeloa Hyypia Defender Riise
-Benayoun Alonso Sissoko Babel
----------Voronin Crouch

Seriously we're one defender short of having two teams and that's not including: Insua, Paletta, Leto, Lucas and whatever other kids you want to throw in.

I don't see Paletta as suitable backup yet, so i think Rafa might go for one more signing before the window is shut.

I'm warming more and more to the idea of Heinze joining, he would be great back up and should play quite a bit at LB as well. If he came in we would have great squad......does someone have the squad Rafa took over? Biscan, Traore, Diao, Cheyrou, Diouf etc.

[RedReet]

[QUOTE If he came in we would have great squad......does someone have the squad Rafa took over? Biscan, Traore, Diao, Cheyrou, Diouf etc.[/QUOTE]

Vs. Spurs 2004

Jerzy Dudek
John Arne Riise
Jamie Carragher
Sami Hyypia
Josemi
Harry Kewell
Steven Gerrard
Dietmar Hamann
Steve Finnan
Milan Baros
Djibril Cisse
SUBS :
Igor Biscan
Stephane Henchoz
Chris Kirkland
Florent Sinama Pongolle
Stephen Warnock

Not too bad on paper actually.

[anfieldanfield]

[QUOTE If he came in we would have great squad......does someone have the squad Rafa took over? Biscan, Traore, Diao, Cheyrou, Diouf etc.

Vs. Spurs 2004

Jerzy Dudek
John Arne Riise
Jamie Carragher
Sami Hyypia
Josemi
Harry Kewell
Steven Gerrard
Dietmar Hamann
Steve Finnan
Milan Baros
Djibril Cisse
SUBS :
Igor Biscan
Stephane Henchoz
Chris Kirkland
Florent Sinama Pongolle
Stephen Warnock

Not too bad on paper actually.[/QUOTE]

Rafa inherited a very decent squad.