Out of curiosity, how many other teams does anyone know of that has 5+ registered CBs in their team and actually benefit from it?
Arsenal (5) - Koscielny, Mustafi, Sokratis, Holding, Mavraponos.
Bournemouth (3) - Cook, Ake, Smith.
Brighton (4) - Duffy, Dunk, Burn, Balogun
Burnley (4) - Tarkowski, Gibson, Mee, Long
Cardiff (4) - Manga, Bamba, Morrison, Connolly
Chelsea (5) - Luiz, Rudiger, Cahill, Christensen, Ampadu
Palace (4) - Sakho, Dann, Tomkins, Riedewald
Everton (5) - Jagielka, Mina, Zouma, Keane, Browning
Fulham (4) - Chambers, Ream, Masson, Marchand
Huddersfield (4) - Zanka, Stankovic, Schindler, Kongolo
Leicester (4) - Morgan, Maguire, Soyuncu, Evans
Liverpool (4) - Lovren, Virgil, Matip, Gomez
Man City (5) - Otamendi, Magala, Kompany, Stones, Laporte
United (5) - Rojo, Bailly, Smalling, Jones, Lindelof
Newcastle (5) - Lascelles, Clark, Fernandez, Lejune, Schar
Saints (4) - Yoshida, Bednarek, Vestergaard, Stephens
Spurs (4) - Alderweireld, Vertonghen, Sanchez, Foyth
Watford (5) - Britos, Mariappa, Prodl, Cathcart, Kabasele
West Ham (5) - Rice, Ogbonna, Reid, Balbuena, Diop
Wolves (3) - Bennett, Boly, Coady
So, us having 4 CBs isnāt as much of a problem as some would have you believe, sure we could have had 5, by either keeping Klavan or bringing another player in, but how do we know we wouldnāt lose that player to injury? Or another player to injury still? The season would have gone differently and for all we know we could have ended up with the front 3 injured instead. Also is there really that much benefit to having 5 registered? City have 5 but Mangala is injured, Kompany always injured and Stones gets a number of knocks. United and West Ham have 5 but both have had loads of injuries and struggled for numbers there. Arsenal have 5 but have to play Xhaka and Monreal their due to injuries...Monreal has lots of injuries too.
Itās all well and good saying Klopp messed up not bringing one in but in the grand scheme of things itās not that much of a problem compared to the number of options for other teams. Fab can play there if need be. Injuries canāt be predicted, these things happen and signing players or keeping players just for the sake of it doesnāt help either because then you are expecting a player who hasnāt played any part up to that point to come in and do a good job. But then that wonāt be right either because if heās rusty from not playing matches then people will moan he played sh*t and isnāt reliable cover.
It isnāt ideal losing a number of players from an area to injury but thereās nothing we can do about that, we have to deal with the situation. Maybe the people who were so pissed at us going out of the FA Cup will be more relieved now because it could have been a lot worse had we stayed in it.
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