Why why why?

[JohnDoe]

Foster is 26!

[Craig_H]

Disagree, we did not win the league and this was due to our inability to break down teams like Hull, Stoke and City at home...**** all to do with squad depth.

Maybe if we'd had the squad depth and quality in depth, we'd have had players to bring on in those games, who could've won them for us?

As it goes, far too often, if Gerrard and Torres dont win us the game - we dont win the game.

[fah-q]

Maybe if we'd had the squad depth and quality in depth, we'd have had players to bring on in those games, who could've won them for us?

As it goes, far too often, if Gerrard and Torres dont win us the game - we dont win the game.

Maybe but the last half of the season was encouraging in that other players in the squad stepped up and won us games.

[Scratch]

Maybe if we'd had the squad depth and quality in depth, we'd have had players to bring on in those games, who could've won them for us?

As it goes, far too often, if Gerrard and Torres dont win us the game - we dont win the game.

Or maybe we just didn't have the run of the ball, after all against Stoke we battered them and just couldn't find the net, and the Hull and City games we were sloppy at the back, and squad depth couldn't have accounted for that, just sloppy play by normally reliable players...at very few points last season did we struggle to create chances, we just sometimes lacked composure/luck in front of goal...if we'd beat 2 out of the 3 (or 4, if we include Stoke home and away) like we really should have done, we would have won the league. We didn't tho, but not down to a lack of squad depth.

[Craig_H]

Maybe but the last half of the season was encouraging in that other players in the squad stepped up and won us games.

Totally agree with this. It's the first time it's happened though, and it needs to happen consistently throughout the season, if we're to win the title.

[Craig_H]

Or maybe we just didn't have the run of the ball, after all against Stoke we battered them and just couldn't find the net, and the Hull and City games we were sloppy at the back, and squad depth couldn't have accounted for that, just sloppy play by normally reliable players...at very few points last season did we struggle to create chances, we just sometimes lacked composure/luck in front of goal...if we'd beat 2 out of the 3 (or 4, if we include Stoke home and away) like we really should have done, we would have won the league. We didn't tho, but not down to a lack of squad depth.

Didnt have the run of the ball? We were lucky to beat Boro and Wigan at home, not to mention the 10 pens we had and the 6-8 times we played against 10 men. We may have had some things go against us, but we had the rub of the green plenty of times too. It's easy to forget that.

As for struggling to create chances - games against West Ham, Fulham, Everton and City at Anfield were dire, we struggled to create chances in those games and lacked flair, guile and creativity.

If we had quality depth in the squad, we would have the option to drop those defenders who make sloppy errors, or those forwards who miss chances, and bring in players of similar quality. But we dont. And cant.

[DeeTheDog]

Why pick the last 4 years when Agger and Skrtel weren't here? Take last season or the last 2 when they were, and both Manu & Chelsea conceded less when they both had to play more games (in other competitions) along the way. You could also argue that the conservative style of football we played in the first half of the season naturally reduces the chance of conceding goals.

I have to disagree as Agger has been injured for majority of the past two seasons, and Skrtel only arrived in January two years ago. Two seasons ago, we failed by putting all our eggs into one basket, Heinze; this left us short of cover at the back and a very tired Sami and resulted in a poor Christmas.

As for last season, our summer gamble of Dossena failed miserably and we conceded a number of goals from the left side of the field, further our zonal marking went on the fritz for a number of weeks resukting in an unusual amount of set-pieces being conceded.

Skrtel and Agger are only 24, which is still young for centre back, in comparison to United's and Chelsea's centre backs. Further, Ferdinand is finding it increasingly difficult to play week in and week out and the same can be said of Terry and Carvalho both the wrong side of 30.

If we can keep a settled back four I'm sure our defensive record will improve. Further, I'm more than happy for last season's trade off with the best goal difference.

[Scratch]

We would never drop the likes of Carra/Agger/Skrtel or Torres and Gerrard...players miss chances, big deal, and players concede goals as they're only human. And how you can claim that we lack creativity and were lucky in games like wigan etc, where we must have created chances to score 3 goals, yet still gave away two to Zaki...it was not squad depth that lost us the season, it was indivudual cock-ups and misfortune. The depth of the squad made little odds. Yes, I'd love for us to have a top class player to back up Torres, but what player would be happy to sit on the bench...or do you suggest changing a winning formation to accomadate a player like Villa?

[Mattshark]

We would never drop the likes of Carra/Agger/Skrtel or Torres and Gerrard...players miss chances, big deal, and players concede goals as they're only human. And how you can claim that we lack creativity and were lucky in games like wigan etc, where we must have created chances to score 3 goals, yet still gave away two to Zaki...it was not squad depth that lost us the season, it was indivudual cock-ups and misfortune. The depth of the squad made little odds. Yes, I'd love for us to have a top class player to back up Torres, but what player would be happy to sit on the bench...or do you suggest changing a winning formation to accomadate a player like Villa?

Also we were top scorers last season.

[Craig_H]

We would never drop the likes of Carra/Agger/Skrtel or Torres and Gerrard...players miss chances, big deal, and players concede goals as they're only human. And how you can claim that we lack creativity and were lucky in games like wigan etc, where we must have created chances to score 3 goals, yet still gave away two to Zaki...it was not squad depth that lost us the season, it was indivudual cock-ups and misfortune. The depth of the squad made little odds. Yes, I'd love for us to have a top class player to back up Torres, but what player would be happy to sit on the bench...or do you suggest changing a winning formation to accomadate a player like Villa?

I didnt mean necessarily 'drop' in that sense, but Rafa does like to rotate, and if you can bring in someone as good, it helps. But that only happens with a strong quality in depth squad.

Players miss chances, yes - and it costs us points and the title - which is the whole issue.

So yes, it's a big deal.

I didnt say we struggled to create chances against Wigan, i have no idea what you're on about there. But we scored late goals to win that, same with Boro - we left it late. We struggled to create against WHU, Fulham, Everton and City - 8 points dropped there. What would've happened if we'd won those games, i wonder? Hmmm....

How did the mancs accommodate Berbatov, Rooney, Tevez and Ronaldo? You might seem to think it'd cause a problem, but as far as a i recall, they won the title. Them's the kinda problems i'd like to have.

The idea of squad depth and quality making little or no odds in a title challenge, is a staggeringly bizarre comment to make.

[-V-]

Yes we failed to break down well organized teams because of our lack of depth. We never had the quality options available to us in order to do so. We all know it will be the same this year if Torres misses a couple of months through injury. So do we suffer from our lack of depth? Yes we do, it was our undoing last year. We went close but bottom line is that we failed.

Don't get me wrong we played some beautiful stuff towards the end of the season but we finished top scorers because with Gerrard and Torres in the team we beat opponents 3-0, 4-0 and 5-0. But its the tight games that were 0-0 that ****ed us over.

Man Utd never had those problems because they were able to throw on a 3rd or 4th quality striker and play with power

[Craig_H]

Yes we failed to break down well organized teams because of our lack of depth. We never had the quality options available to us in order to do so. We all know it will be the same this year if Torres misses a couple of months through injury. So do we suffer from our lack of depth? Yes we do, it was our undoing last year. We went close but bottom line is that we failed.

Don't get me wrong we played some beautiful stuff towards the end of the season but we finished top scorers because with Gerrard and Torres in the team we beat opponents 3-0, 4-0 and 5-0. But its the tight games that were 0-0 that ****ed us over.

Man Utd never had those problems because they were able to throw on a 3rd or 4th quality striker and play with power

Spot on.

The fact is, if you're struggling to break a team down, the more quality attacking/striker options you have, the more chance that someone will find a breakthrough for you.

We didnt (and still dont) have enough of these options.

Of course a lack of quality in depth cost us.

[dww]

Actually in retrospect I'm going to delete all of the childish squabbling nonsense on this page and leave the following warning if people can't let thread continue as discussions of a topic and/or make deliberately antagonistic posts they are going straight to the sin bin.

[PTP]

jesus wept -

[Scratch]

Of course a lack of quality in depth cost us. Anyone who thinks otherwise, doesnt really know much about football.

Personally, anyone who thinks that a lack of depth was our downfall is seriously grasping at straws...we failed because we drew games we had chances to win...two games is all it took, two draws into wins...and we had the chances to do that. Drawing at some of the teams who park the bus is not a surprise, it happens to even teams like United. Conceding more than one goal to teams like Hull or Man City was terrible, and cost us points. Not beating Stoke home and away when we battered them cost us points. We had those games there at our mercy, and we let them slip...and therefore, we let the title slip.

It's a shame you have to resort to the "if someone doesn't see my point of view, they know nothing about football" line, cos it just makes yo sound like a cretin who can't stand up for himself, and instead resorts to petty digs.

And, as you'll note, i have said i wish we had someone on the bench as good as Torres, but no player of sufficient calibre would be happy to play a bench role, so we would have to alter our game to allow them all to play, like we did when Keane arrived. Or we could do what united did, and stick a forward (Rooney) out on the left to accomodate a waster like Berbatov, and leave a player on the bench to get frustrated and leave like Tevez has done. And then sell your best player and replace him with Valencia and Owen, which is a massive step back for them.