Quality, or insurance, or both?

[Salopian]

Everyone now agrees that we have competition for every place in the side, - one injury or suspension in any position and we have someone of reasonable quality to step in. We ought not to have to scrap around for someone to fill in by playing out of his normal position.  We have signed 10 players, even if one is not immediately available, and we have spent quite a lot of money in the process.

What have we achieved, however? We have a squad which offers good security in the face of injury or suspension. This certainly means that we should be nearer the top of the Championship than nearer the bottom. This is the insurance which is necessary, when we remember how far we fell last time we exited the Premiership, and applied to other clubs such as Wolves as well.

To what extent have we added real quality? Obviously we have replaced some not very good signings from the Hughton time, and I do not doubt at all that the average level of ability has risen. Can Grabban maintain his scoring rate, or can some other player step up to the "match winner" level as well - Vadis, Hooiveld, a rejuvenated Redmond, Johnson, Tettey, Howson? What I am asking is whether we have improved our chances by increasing the quality in most positions, rather than by signing one or two expensive players who could be called "outstanding", players who can win a game for us from their individual skill and technique.  

Is the plan to consolidate this year, although hoping for promotion, with the intention of acquiring one or two expensive signings in the near future? This is not intended as a criticism. It is possible that because of our meteoric rise from Div 1 to the Premiership that it was the lack of consolidation which gave us a harder task after promotion.

 

[GazzaTCC]

As we've yet to see these signings play it's very difficult to judge whether they're the real deal or back up. Hopefully, they're all here to fight for a place on match days, rather than just collect the dish!

 

[Warren Hill]

I'm not sure that we've particularly improved the squad per se, Fer and Snodgrass would still walk into our first XI wouldn't they? We're playing at a lower level though and if you look at how Johnno and Tettey are dominating (thus far) midfield battles, that slight drop in class of opposition is evident so perhaps we didn't need to improve the squad but ensure that we can always field a team that can threaten the opposition, which I reckon we've done.

Proof is in the pudding of course...

 

[Din]

I think we're much better off making sure we have good back-up in every position, rather than spending big money on a couple of quality signings. We already had a lot of quality in this side before we signed anyone, Redmond, Hoolahan, Howson, Turner, Ruddy, Hooper etc. And even some of the players that perhaps aren't as crucial, are still very good options to have, the likes of E.Bennett, Jerome, Whittaker, R.Bennett, O'Neil, Murphy, Garrido etc. We already have sufficient quality so the most important thing in my eyes was that we have a lot of strength in depth, especially as there are going to be more mid-week games. Plus we're yet to see a few of the new signings player yet, so they could be adding even more quality to an already strong team. If we go up we will need to add a lot more quality, but I'm very happy with the squad we have right now. 

 

[cityoldboy]

any player of great quality would eff orf in January window anyway so its best to 

have good players with good replacements happy with a system and who work hard.