As we rapidly descend into the nether regions of silly season--where newspapers contrive to drive us batty with transfer gossip--I sense that quite a few people are becoming rather dejected with the way things are unfolding thus far. While rival clubs with deep pockets are hovering like vultures and starting to hoover up quality players, we're getting reports suggesting that, financially speaking, we may not have a pot to p!ss in this summer. People are understandably concerned that our rivals will strengthen significantly while we sift through Europe's bargain bins or are forced to sell a key player or two to raise some transfer cash.
While this thread is not designed to dismiss the very real financial constraints we find the club operating under, I do think there is some genuine cause for optimism when we consider the squad we already have (a squad, it needs reminding, that finished just behind the Mancs, chalked up 84 points over the course of our most successful league campaign in many a year and outscored the rest of the league in the process while still boasting a stingy defensive record).
So, for the sake of discussion, let's suppose that we take the road less traveled this summer and do nothing in the transfer market: neither selling top players nor bringing in new personnel. Also, for the sake of discussion, let's set aside the probability that certain other teams will be more competitive next season--in this instance, I'd prefer to look just at our squad and assess what this group of players might be able to achieve if kept together and given the benefit of the experience gained this past season. (How other teams may or may not fare is not our concern here, except insofar as it matters when it comes time to play them.)
This, I think, leads to the question of whether there's room for improvement with the existing squad (rather than improvement gained through transfers). I think there is in a couple of ways. First, there's the improvement that would come if we were to play the more attacking brand of football we enjoyed during this season's run-in from the outset next season. Sure, in doing so we run the risk of losing the odd game with our more cavalier style but we also stand to turn more of those title-impeding draws into wins.
Second--and here's the point of a new thread--I think we can consider the improvement that would come from getting our best players on the pitch together a lot more. This isn't a point about rotation, BTW, because, by and large, Rafa toned down the styling this past season to good effect. Even so, if you look at some of the stats for league games played in this past season, you quickly come to the conclusion that a combination of injuries kept some key players off the pitch for some significant periods of time:
League Matches Missed
Torres.....18
Gerrard.....8
Alonso.....11
Masch.....10
Arbeloa.....9
Skrtel......14 (not counting rotation with Agger during run-in)
Agger.....7 (not counting rotation with Skrtel/Hyypia)
Aurelio.....8 (not counting rotation with Dossena & Insua)
Thankfully we had Carra, Reina and Kuyt fit and available for every game to compensate!
So, when you start to have a look at how these injuries affected the team we could put out for each league match, it becomes apparent that fielding what most would agree is close to our best eleven was tricky. (Here it gets a little subjective, as everyone's best 11 is slightly different but if we acknowledge that, in a few positions, we're not radically weakened when selecting between two players...it might look something like this):
Our Best Elevenish
Reina
Arbeloa Carragher Agger/Skrtel Aurelio/Insua
Alonso Mascherano
Kuyt Gerrard Riera/Benayoun
Torres
Can you believe that some iteration of this Best 11 (with either Agger or Skrtel partnering Carra at CB and so on...) only managed to play together FOUR TIMES all season?!? In a way, that's not surprising--as both Keane and Dossena saw plenty of action early in the season. Still, even after Keane was sold and Dossena proven to be pants, we still fielded a variation of the above only 3 times out of 16 games in the league.
Of course, when working with a best 11 (even a best 11ish) there's always more likelihood that someone will be missing due to injury or suspension (while there's every likelihood that the absence of an individual or two can be compensated for in the short term). So, maybe a better measure is to look at our absolutely key players and see how often they played together in the league. If we define our key players, broadly, as:
Reina
Arbeloa (only reliable specialist RB)
Carragher
Alonso
Mascherano
Kuyt (Rafa obviously considers him to be key)
Gerrard
Torres
Amazingly, we find that these 8 players only played 3 games together all season!
If we (as Tomkins does in his latest piece) narrow our definition of key players to:
Reina
Carragher
Alonso
Mascherano
Gerrard
Torres
We find that these 6 players only managed 4 games together all season! If we take away the constants that are Reina and Carra (who played every game) that means that Alonso, Masch, Gerrard and Torres only started 4 league games together all season!!! Incredible!
Finally, we could focus on the much touted Gerrard-Torres attacking axis and we would find that these two key players only started 14 of 38 league games all season. A big improvement on 4 games together but still a long way short of optimal.
What conclusions can we draw from this? Well, the obvious one is that we might have done even better this season if we had found a way to get more of our key players on the pitch together at the same time. Injuries, of course, happen to all teams and we'll be hit with them again next season too. But, just a little bit more luck on that front might see us getting close to our strongest team on the pitch more often next season, which might make all the difference between a draw and a victory.
So, to drag a rather long-winded opening post toward a conclusion, is it possible to suggest that, with a little luck in the injury department, we could do nothing in the transfer market and still expect to field a stronger team more frequently next season than we did during this one? Food for thought, perhaps.
-----
In case anyone's interested, I've also worked up a few numbers that gesture at the cost of particular player absences. I'm hesitant to draw any firm conclusions from them, but make of these numbers what you will:
Number of Draws/Losses Missed Through Injury etc. (season total: 11 draws/2 losses)
Torres.....4/2
Gerrard.....4/0
Alonso.....4/0
Masch.....4/0
1 of the above.....6/2
2 of the above.....5/0
Carra at CB.....2/0
Skrtel.....5/1
Agger.....8/1
Aurelio....6/2
Benayoun.....6/2
Arbeloa.....2/1
Riera.....2/1
Kuyt....1/0