pool of players

[marsvolta]

it seems that slowly but surely the quality of players available to john toshack is getting bigger.

1) 23 man squad named with no players from league 1 or 2(or non-league).
2) 3 almost certain starters in collins,ramsey and collison not in squad due to injury.
3) joe allen,ribiero and nyatanga also missing due to injury.
4) gabbidon,dorman,cotterill,price and eastwood not selected.
5) above includes 14 premiership players
removing simon davies still leaves 33 players available (im sure ive missed some out) plus a few u21s ready to make the step up.
i pretty sure this is a better headcount than a few years ago.

[Tim P]

a genuine reason for optimism.

but this now needs to be backed up by positive results. as far as i can see, there are no more excuses now. this must be the campaign that Our Leader is judged on.

[flynnfan]

It's his last campaign, so he's not going to have another chance to get it right anyway. I hope as much as anything that it'll appeal to his ego to go out in a blaze of glory by taking us to our first ever proper tournament qualification.

The deeper pool of players we have now is a definite reason for optimism. When its come to the crunch in the past we've been missing key players (Hughes and Aizlewood v Romania 93, Bellamy, Pembridge? v Russia in 2003) and it's cost us big time. Being able to bring in someone like Darcy Blake only NOW with 14 caps at U21 level and numerous big club games behind him is a real sign of how things have improved. It bodes very well for this campaign.

[saints19]

Best situation we've had in the six years Toshack has been our coach, as you'd expect as the teenagers are now teenagers no more (mostly, anyway). Frankly, if these lads werent playing Premiership or Championship football by this point in their careers you'd be pretty worried for them.

[Deleted]

Good thread. And the squad depth should only continue to deepen. But...need something back now in terms of results.