Squad weakness exposed by Schalke

It was a depressing watch, we never really looked the better side and we could have gone behind on several occasions before Huntelaar finally broke the deadlock.  There was no lack of effort from the players on the field though, it was simply that this team was not good enough and that the manager had not set-up the players as effectively as he might have done.

A few injuries and we are looking very weak indeed, we are down to the bare bones on the bench and there were very few options for the manager in terms of personnel.  Santos is a defensive liability, Ramsey was deployed in a role that he simply cannot perform in, while playing Gervinho centrally and Podolski wide was simply bizarre.  Even if the team had been set up a bit better, I still doubt whether we could have really dominated the Germans as we should be able to.

This squad is simply too weak and it pains me to say it.  This was demonstrated by the options on the bench, the experienced attacking players were Chamakh and Arshavin, it's just not good enough.  With Ox and Theo out there was absolutely zero width in the team, one of the few positives was the outstanding performance of Francis Coquelin, he was combative and sharp, a great display.

We lack forwards, we lack width and we lack quality squad depth.  These things were all so predictable at the start of the season and it is so frustrating to be pointing them out again now.  It is no surprise that our injury prone players like Diaby and Rosicky are currently unfit.  I can't fault the effort of the players on the field tonight, they largely did their best, they just weren't as good as Schalke.  We need our injured players back fast and we need to turn this poor run around.  This squad is in danger of producing our most average and mediocre season for a very long time.