Will we qualify for the CL?

[eye digress]

Noticed Jonathan Liew on the Football Weekly (in proximity to a great rant on Sir Jim) opine that he “worries for Villa” and thinks we’ll miss out on a Chump’s league place.

I usually have a lot of time for him, but don’t think he’s thought this one through - even though his broader thinking (the 5 richest clubs will finish top 5) can’t really be faulted per se.

But he did say something else that I thought interesting, that Villa have been struck down by injuries, and that we don’t have the depth of squad to compete in those circumstances with the Uniteds, Chelseas, Liverpools, etc.

It’s something I hear often, like a short hand, but is it really true?

I mean, if United’s first choice 6 and 8 were out for the season, would they be fielding a better quality pair than Onana and Luiz? If the centre backs were out, would they be fielding better than Lindelhof/Mings? Same questions for other positions, and for Chelsea and Liverpool (a similar question was answered on another thread for goalkeepers yesterday, where the consensus would have had our pair 4th out of the top 6 after City, Arsenal and Liverpool).

[Dick Edwards]

We do have a good squad. As you allude to, if any club in Europe lost their entire first choice midfield, they would suffer a drop in quality. Arsenal for instance have a huge squad, but if their central midfield equivalent of Rice, Odegaard and Zubimendi were missing simultaneously for an extended period they'd struggle.

[Mellin]

Agree with every word. If you even take out McGinn and just remove Rice and Zubamendi, Rodri and Silva, Casemiro and Mainoo, Caicedo and Fernandez, or Gravenbach and Szoboszlai...how's that going to go? Exactly as it has for us. The back up is fine, just no team in the world can cope with losing their two best players in their strongest position.

We all knew we were fucked when we heard about Kamara and we all knew we were really fucked when we heard about McGinn and Tielemans. The story starts and ends there.

[Percy McCarthy]

^^ I like Jonny Liew as well. He predicted us to finish 9th at the start of the season.

[Monty]

Yeah he's just one of those people who doesn't rate this team much or, for some reason, the club at large. Some Londoncentrism at work I guess. Anyway, he's very good in general.

[Skipper_The_Eyechild]

I'm not a massive Liew fan but I imagine his opinion is held by many people. I enjoyed him calling Ratcliffe a fucking prick more than once the other day.