COLUMNIST JOHN HOLMES

Short of players?

By John Holmes : 05/07/2007 :

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Sparked into action by someone's claim on a comments page that we only had 17 players in the squad I went and had a look at the official site's squad list. By my counting we have in fact 25. This begs the question just how short are we and who isn't being counted?

Obviously not counteds are Boyle who looked likely to break into the first team last season before sustaining a serious injury but is back and ready now. Ruddy, now seemingly official third choice keeper. Da Silva, peripheral in the extreme last year but the fact Moyes has signed him up suggests that with a proper pre-season we may see more of him.

Vidarsson who must surely be in his now or never season after two years looking like he might breakthrough. Finally, Jutkiewicz who seems to have been treated as a non-signing for the academy but he's listed as a first-team player and, unlike Scott Spencer, was playing for the first team at Swindon so I feel he can be counted.

Obviously we're still expecting to lose a few players, VDM, Naysmith, perhaps Beattie, but I feel we're not as short of player as has been claimed. We're clearly lacking central defensive cover and are likely to need another winger and central-midfielder but I don't buy into the apocalyptic accounts of squad shortages that some are perpetuating.

In reality, if those above (plus Jagielka) are truly to become first team-players, we've gained five players on last season's utilisable personnel (and lost two in Pistone and Wright who weren't utilised anyway). Mourinho, I think said he needed about 24ish players in his squad. With the expected two or three more signings we'll easily have that.

I honestly think the discussion can move on from numbers to quality which for me can be simply summarised as pace and creativity needed for the midfield and reliable cover (now we have pace in Jagielka) for the back.

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