Squad Size

[TBW]

I seem to remember that when Coppell joined us SL mentioned that a squad size of around 25 would be what he was looking for, I know we've got a bunch of injuries but our squad size without including Maynard and Vokes who are more long-term absentees is at 30 at the moment and with KM mentioning he is looking to bring in another two or three more our squad size could be at 33 by the time the transfer window closes so should we expect to see a few players leaving the club aswell as coming in or are we just going to loan out all the academy grad. players again? Edwards, Lennox and Ball all heading away to L2/Conference would still then leave us with 30 if we've got three coming in. Seems a bit far off Lansdowns original idea of the squad size/wage bill he wanted really.

[GrahamC]

You're right.

If we ever reach the glorious day when all (most?) of our absentees are fit and should we also add 2/3 more by deadline day we'd be having squad numbers of 35 and 36, that is far too many.

My guess is when that happens 5 or 6 will be allowed to depart either permanently or if we are outside the transfer window, on loan with a view to a permanent move.

The likes of Tom Williams, Gavin Williams, Johnson, Styvar, Akinde plus several of the youngsters you mention would seem to be the most likely suspects if we can find takers.

I don't think Gerken and Henderson will both want to hang around with one of them not even sitting on the bench, either.

[Pezo]

I seem to remember that when Coppell joined us SL mentioned that a squad size of around 25 would be what he was looking for, I know we've got a bunch of injuries but our squad size without including Maynard and Vokes who are more long-term absentees is at 30 at the moment and with KM mentioning he is looking to bring in another two or three more our squad size could be at 33 by the time the transfer window closes so should we expect to see a few players leaving the club aswell as coming in or are we just going to loan out all the academy grad. players again? Edwards, Lennox and Ball all heading away to L2/Conference would still then leave us with 30 if we've got three coming in. Seems a bit far off Lansdowns original idea of the squad size/wage bill he wanted really.

But what's this got to do with Cardiff?

Seriously though, it is a bit far off of the 25 estimate but it still feels like we are a weaker squad to me than we were last year, I think that's most likely down to the injury prone pre season we have had though.

im not so sure we have improved over the summer 1/2 as much as we would have liked to have. we have lost influential players like McCombe, Hartley, Bradley, Sno and its probably fair to include Basso in that list as well, we have gained players like James, Cisse, Stewart and Hunt which seems to be first teamers and almost direct replacements, you could argue that we have got more quality and got rid of some of the quantity but for me and from what I have seen so far (2 friendly, which are pointless and 1 league game) we are coming up a little short in the middle of the park and haven't replaced the ball playing midfielder that Hartley was, so we lack a little bit of cleverness need to unlock defences and also due to injuries lack Maynard as the cutting edge.

To me we felt weaker as a squad this year but looking at it on paper and thinking about it as I have in this post it has dawned on me that we have less quantity and more quality in the area we really needed it, Defence, we now need to take another look at how we go forward and score goals. and to do that we have to bring in more quality. Having a number like 25 players when its not needed is a bit silly, its a bit like having had solid wage structure where you wont pay over 10k a week to any player (makes me sick) if Ronaldo said he wanted to play for your team but he needed 12k a week it would be silly not to move it around a bit, we need more than 25 players why restrict ourselves if we can afford it (or cant in Cardiffs case, knew I would get them in there somewhere).