Ah I see.
You do say this at the start of every season mind you
You do say this at the start of every season mind you
Not entirely sure that's true, but you can't deny this squad is worse than either of those we've started the last two seasons with?
I don't mind denying that.
Here's our top 11 players from 2009/10 by games started...
Andrew Durante
Paul Ifill
Tony Lochhead
Tim Brown
Manny Muscat
Leo Bertos
Vince Lia
Chris Greenacre
Ben Sigmund
Jon McKain
Troy Hearfield
And here's our top 11 players from 2010/11 by games started...
Tim Brown
Manny Muscat
Ben Sigmund
Andrew Durante
Vince Lia
Troy Hearfield
Chris Greenacre
Paul Ifill
Jade North
Leo Bertos
Nick Ward
So basically you're saying we're worse off because we've lost Jon McKain, Troy Hearfield, Jade North and Nick Ward??
I'll give you Jon McKain but that's it. Every one of those other players is either no loss (North) or has been replaced by someone at least as good (Hearfield by Downey/Tsattalios and Ward by Pantelis).
The goalkeepers don't appear on those lists because Paston/Reddy and Paston/Vukovic all started a similar number of games.
I said SQUAD, not starting 11. It remains to be seen whether the players that have replaced those who have left are as good, or better. I have my doubts.
Additionally, don't forget that our good run last season coincided with the emergence of Rojas who assisted a huge majority of our goals during that spell. He's also gone and that's a major goal threat gone. He hasn't been replaced.
Hearfield had his moments and was useful to have in the squad. McAllister? Scored a few goals last season - not replaced. Vukovic and Reddy were both better than Paston. Warner is not better than either of them either IMO.
The depth of the squad is alarming whether the core of the previous seasons starting 11s are still there or not.