How big a squad does a club like Arsenal need? And why is Man U so different?

By Tony Attwood

Arsenal have a first team squad (according to the official Arsenal website) of 27 players.

These are players who are clearly part of the elite group at the club – irrespective of their ages (which is why it is possible to have over the regulation 25).

Now this squad is not the same as those announced on the official League site, where Arsenal’s list of 25 players is actually shown as 21 players without the underage players.

			Home grown?
1	Cedric Ricardo	Alves Soares
2	Pierre-Emerick	Aubameyang
3	Calum	Chambers	HGP
4	Gabriel	Dos Santos Magalhães
5	Mohamed Naser Elsayed	Elneny
6	Robert Samuel	Holding	HGP
7	Sead	Kolasinac
8	Alexandre	Lacazette
9	Bernd	Leno
10	Ainsley	Maitland-Niles	HGP
11	Pablo	Mari Villar
12	Edward Keddar	Nketiah	HGP
13	Martin	Odegaard
14	Thomas Teye	Partey
15	Nicolas	Pepe
16	Aaron	Ramsdale	HGP
17	Albert-Mboyo	Sambi Lokonga
18	Kieran	Tierney
19	Takehiro	Tomiyasu
20	Benjamin	White	HGP
21	Granit	Xhaka

So we only have 21 players in our first-team squad, out of a possible total of 25, which may seem like a typical bit of Arsenal management mishandling of the situation, which the media love to go on and on about.

But the point is that within the first-team squad we also have a group who are not included because on the qualifying date they were all under 21.

• Arthur Okonkwo
• Nuno Tavares
• Bukayo Saka
• Emile Smith Rowe
• Folarin Balogun
• Gabrielle Martinelli

In addition to this, we have seven potential first-team squad members out on loan.   Which means that all the chatter about who we are going to sign in January really ought to be taking into account the current size of our squad, and the loanees.

But to do that we have to compare ourselves with the rest of the top clubs in the PL.  We have 27 first teamers – but what about the rest?

Liverpool like Arsenal have 27.   Chelsea also have 27.  Manchester City have 26.  Tottenham have 24, and so do West Ham

These numbers come from the clubs’ own websites, and interestingly they all tend to set out their first team squad in the same way – which obviously you can look at through the links provided.

But you may have noticed one club is missing from the list.  Manchester United, and this is because they claim to have 38 members of their first team squad.  (That is not a mistyping on my part – really it is 38!!!!!)

And not only is that totally out of line with the other clubs who are either challenging for a top-four place or who think that they are, even if they aren’t (won’t mention any names here but the initial TH come to mind for some reason), it is really odd because most of these first team members are not being used.  Or at least not much.  For example, they actually include five keepers, when everyone else seems to be quite happy with three.

Now I was pondering this issue when what should pop up on my screen by an article in the Telegraph headlined Man Utd fringe players increasingly frustrated by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s lack of rotation

It begins, “Despite six defeats in past 12 games, including humiliations to Liverpool and Man City, Solskjaer has remained loyal to same players.”   And it continues, “A number of Manchester United’s fringe players feel misled about their playing prospects this season amid growing frustration about Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s reluctance to rotate despite a dire run of results that have left his future hanging in the balance.”

Now it is true of course that Manchester United are playing in one more competition than Arsenal this season,  But then so are Liverpool, Chelsea, West Ham, and indeed, bless them, Tottenham Hots who are in the mighty Europa Conference League.

Of course we shouldn’t laugh at that because it could so easily have been us, but I am rather glad it isn’t because it would have automatically been included in my season ticket, and the tickets for those matches would have been impossible to sell, meaning I either just had to waste it, or make the 180 mile round trip to watch the reserves play against Tiddleytoddly City of lower Andorra.

But anyway Tottenham are doing it, and their results have left them in second place battling it out for a place in the knock out stages in their remaining games against Rennes and Mura – it would be an almighty cockup if they failed to make it through…

	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
Rennes	4	3	1	0	7	4	3	10
Tottenham Hots	4	2	1	1	10	6	4	7
Vitesse Arnhem	4	2	0	2	6	5	1	6
NS Mura	4	0	0	4	2	10	-8	0

But to get back to my point – Manchester United have this enormous squad, while all the other teams each have a first-team squad of a similar, smaller, size.

Now we have already seen that Manchester United are somewhat out of step with the rest of the big boys in the league in terms of putting in the smallest number of tackles but managing to get an insanely higher ratio of yellow cards.

So maybe the manager has built up the squad to cope with the bans that will undoubtedly be heading their way shortly.

Or maybe he saw what Arteta was doing in terms of cutting tackles in recent years and thought, yes we can do that, but didn’t quite get the process right.

Or maybe he simply has no idea what he is doing.   That would seem rather odd, as he’s been in football all his life, but I really do wonder.