Unai Emery

[pauliewalnuts]

We are always a nats chuff away from a vital injury.

And also a g short of a nat's (sic) chuff.

[Clampy]

We had 8 players on the bench today including two keepers.  We need more depth.  Now.

We also had Ramsey, Mings, Dendoncker, Buendia, Moreno and Martinez out injured.

[Keeno]

Put it this way.  When Luiz went down in the first minute I was holding my hands in front of my eyes.  We are always a nats chuff away from a vital injury.

Problem is, unless you're Man City, that has 2 £50m+ players in every position on the pitch, that's kind of the situation we're all in. Today, Newcastle brought on Elliott Anderson and Longstaff as the next two players into their midfield after Tonali and Bruno. At least we have Tielemans and Zaniolo...

We've spent 50m on a player this summer. And (presumably) are paying extremely competitive wages for all of the new additions.

I wouldn't mind 1 more addition in the striking department, a veteran backup for Ollie who won't mind not playing many games - but apart from that, we'll have 3/4 players back after the international break and the picture will look a lot more healthy.

[kippaxvilla2]

We are always a nats chuff away from a vital injury.

And also a g short of a nat's (sic) chuff.

Agreed.

[kippaxvilla2]

We had 8 players on the bench today including two keepers.  We need more depth.  Now.

We also had Ramsey, Mings, Dendoncker, Buendia, Moreno and Martinez out injured.

So three players then.

[Clampy]

We had 8 players on the bench today including two keepers.  We need more depth.  Now.

We also had Ramsey, Mings, Dendoncker, Buendia, Moreno and Martinez out injured.

So three players then.

We had 6 players out. Would you leave any of those out the first team or away from the bench?

[PeterWithesShin]

Martinez, Mings, Moreno, JJ, Tim, Donk, Coutinho, Buendia. All missing today.

We all want more players but there's a balance between numbers, even when injured, and wages.

[Clampy]

Exactly. We can't ignore players being out injured and say 'we only had 8 on the bench, we need more players in Now'. There's sometimes a weak bench for a reason.

[kippaxvilla2]

Clamps you’re always there aren’t you. Three players that can have an effect this season.  Donk doesn’t count. 

[Ads]

He counted when we hammered Newcastle.

[kippaxvilla2]

We had 8 players on the bench today including two keepers.  We need more depth.  Now.

We also had Ramsey, Mings, Dendoncker, Buendia, Moreno and Martinez out injured.

So three players then.

We had 6 players out. Would you leave any of those out the first team or away from the bench?

I don’t know if you understand how this works.  You play 38 games in a season.  So if half of those players are not going to be available for that season then you have a shortage of players.

[Clampy]

Clamps you’re always there aren’t you. Three players that can have an effect this season.  Donk doesn’t count. 

I'm always there? No, this is a forum, I'm debating your post. If you have trouble with that, then maybe a football forum isn't for you.

Oh, and  does Donk count. I can't see why he wouldn't be.

[PeterWithesShin]

Donk made 20 league appearances last season, I don't see how he doesn't count.

[paul_e]

I think rather than signing players to replace Mings and Buendia (either permanently or on loan) we've instead decided to keep Chambers and Bert around long than we'd planned.

I don't know what the plan is with right back but Emery seems happy with Konsa as an option there so we might go with what we have.

If Coutinho does go I suspect it's because he'll be replaced but with someone a little more versatile to be an option in a few different positions.

I also think the next transfer (which may be the last one) will be someone we've been waiting on for a while and that was always likely to happen in the last few days of the window.

Overall I think using net spend to judge how we've done in a window is narrow-minded and misleading, right now we've added 4 first team players who are full international for 4 of the top sides in Europe, if we'd spent £200m on them it wouldn't be any more impressive than it is when we've spent more like £70m

[Clampy]

We had 8 players on the bench today including two keepers.  We need more depth.  Now.

We also had Ramsey, Mings, Dendoncker, Buendia, Moreno and Martinez out injured.

So three players then.

We had 6 players out. Would you leave any of those out the first team or away from the bench?

I don’t know if you understand how this works.  You play 38 games in a season.  So if half of those players are not going to be available for that season then you have a shortage of players.

Other than Mings and Buendia, the others will be back at some point, hopefully sooner rather than later. Players do tend to come back from injury.