A question for us...

[reds123]

Seriously do you think that without Torres, we are better than Spurs and Aston Villa?

It's painful considering what position we were last year, but from what we are watching this year, it seems that they are better organised, more motivated and talent wise we are level imo

Whrn torres plays, then it's a different story!!!

[Chrono]

Without Gerrard and Torres we would finish about 8-10th.

[Bender]

without Torres and Gerrard and Pepe were worse than those teams

[Shaggy]

without Torres and Gerrard and Pepe were worse than those teams

But then when Defoe, Lennon and whoever else don't play, then Spurs are worse than, say, Sunderland.

It's a pointless thing to say, pointless thread.

[Exiled_red]

But then when Defoe, Lennon and whoever else don't play, then Spurs are worse than, say, Sunderland.

It's a pointless thing to say, pointless thread.

[dww]

I'm not sure it is pointless. We have been without Torres and Gerrard a lot of late and so the quality of the team without them is an important factor in how we fare over a season.

I actually think that fully with an otherwise fully fit we are better than Spurs, Everton, Villa or City. We do however lack pace and would probably arrange our team differently long term. Any team whether technically better than others can be effected by factors other than ability - injuries, confidence etc. At the minute all of those things have gone wrong for us and we are still close to those teams. I know Gerrard and Torres have played but they have rarely been fully fit. It is a closer call than any of us would like it to be.

[Bender]

But then when Defoe, Lennon and whoever else don't play, then Spurs are worse than, say, Sunderland.

It's a pointless thing to say, pointless thread.

yeah we could go on and on THREAD CLOSED .....Oh wait i don't have any power on here

[SimonNo7]

But then when Defoe, Lennon and whoever else don't play, then Spurs are worse than, say, Sunderland.

It's a pointless thing to say, pointless thread.

I don't think it is a pointless thing to say because if a couple of Spurs players don't play, they have got players of equal capabilities to come in, we don't.

Also there is another big difference, in my opinion, with these so called poorer teams than us, and that is they are a team, a team who know how to play together. Looking at us this season I don't see a team at all, I see strangers!!!

[Exiled_red]

I don't think it is a pointless thing to say because if a couple of Spurs players don't play, they have got players of equal capabilities to come in, we don't.

Also there is another big difference, in my opinion, with these so called poorer teams than us, and that is they are a team, a team who know how to play together. Looking at us this season I don't see a team at all, I see strangers!!!

I agree with that, but I still think to some extent it's I think it's an irrelavent question, when building the team you assume that the majority of the time you'll have your best players available. Unless you have a vast transfer budget and can afford quality backups in every position. A decent (not great) back up to Torres would probably cost around ~£12m, spending that sort of money would wipe out a vast amount of our transfer budget for a player that would (hopefully) not play 75% of the time.

[SimonNo7]

I agree with that, but I still think to some extent it's I think it's an irrelavent question, when building the team you assume that the majority of the time you'll have your best players available. Unless you have a vast transfer budget and can afford quality backups in every position. A decent (not great) back up to Torres would probably cost around ~£12m, spending that sort of money would wipe out a vast amount of our transfer budget for a player that would (hopefully) not play 75% of the time.

But the thing is, Spurs and Villa have built squads where they have cover. We seem to have dismantled parts of our squad which leaves us to pray that our stars don't get injured.

Let's just look at strikers (which I do realise is the obvious area to look at and we all know we are well short in that department) :

Spurs have Defoe, Crouch, Keane (from us) and Pav
Villa have Agbonlahor, Carew, Heskey and Young
We have Torres, Ngog, Voronin and Kuyt

You have to admit you would take any of their strikers over ours apart from Torres of course and that begs the question how have they been able to build up strikeforces like they have while we haven't. You have to lay this at Rafa's feet I'm afraid.

[Icon]

Not a pointless thread.

And we are VERY mediocre withouth Torres and SG.
Benny deserves credit mind.

[Tee]

But then when Defoe, Lennon and whoever else don't play, then Spurs are worse than, say, Sunderland.

It's a pointless thing to say, pointless thread.

Exactly.

[Shaggy]

Basically it's saying "if you take the best players out of team they become worse!". Obvious and pointless.

[Tatterdemalion]

Spurs are playing their best football in years and their tails are up. I even get spurs fans gloating to me at work. Yet although we are having our worst season in probably 5, they're still only a few points ahead of us. They are on a crest whereas we are depressed and yet only a few points in it. I think that says everything you need to know. With our star players we are much better then them - the only difference I would highlight is that for their level they have much more depth than we do. But that is for their level - needless to say most of their players would not be good enough for us. They look good in the context of an over achieving yet under performing spurs team.

[MrMichael]

I think if you took Gerrard, Torres, Agger, Mascherano and Reina out of our team we'd then definitely be worse. Oh, and perhaps Johnson too.

Our squad is not as bad as people are making out. We've just suffered from a severe loss of momentum, confidence and form, alongside a succession of unfortunate injury problems and some occasionally puzzling managerial decisions, which have all served to compound and exaggerate a couple of major personnel deficiencies, no more than that.

The table at the moment is not lying. No, we're not better than Spurs and Villa. We have the potential to be though I think, even within the current squad (as they showed last season), but we're not playing anywhere near as close to our potential as they are. I don't think we could have been any more ****e than we have been, most of it without Torres and/or Gerrard, yet we're more or less within one win of them both, that tells its own tale imo.