Finding the balance between having ‘strength in depth’ and ‘too many options to choose from’.
That is very much the situation that Fulham find themselves in for multiple positions on the pitch, I spoke yesterday about the right-wing position following an article posted on Cottage Analytica and how we should be looking to downsize the number of players we have fighting for that role.
And following another interesting article, this time from Fulham Focus, I feel the same could be said for our central midfield options. I’m not just talking about those that we already know are surplus to requirement like Stefan Johansen and Kevin McDonald who didn’t make the cut for the Premier League squad, I’m talking about how we utilise the ones we already have.
The article makes the claim that we have just enough players available at our disposal to hold out for the rest of the season, saying that we can straddle the fine line between ‘versatility’ without necessarily going too far down the road of being considered a team that chops and changes every week.
Have you been impressed with Lemina this season?
Yes
No
And I agree to some extent, but I feel that having five options; Tom Cairney, Mario Lemina, Andre Frank Zambo Anguissa, Harrison Reed and Ruben Loftus-Cheek is having one option too many, and with the likes of Josh Onomah likely to be considered when the January window comes around and the squad can be reset, something has got to give in that department.
Rotation is fine, but something also has to be said about keeping the squad the same, something that was key to our greatest ever season back in 2008/09, and I’d much rather have a settled squad with the occasional tweak than one that changes every week, even if changes are made to suit each opponent.
I also recently touched on the notion that we need to sign a backup centre-forward in order to give Aleksandar Mitrovic some help, and if we have to do that by loaning out/selling/dropping one of the central midfielders that we already have, then I think it’s an option that we need to consider and take seriously.
What about you? What do you think about our midfield options? Do you think we have too many?