Our defensive depth...

...worries me.

We have six senior defenders to last until January at the very least. That's less than most teams take to a World Cup! You might add Bellerin to that, but as promising as he is, he's still young and raw and not yet the sort of player we'd want to have to rely on for an extended period.

We had 7 defenders for the entirety of last season and even then found ourselves having to play Sagna at CB on multiple occasions. Of course there are suggestions that this season Monreal could fill a similar role if need be, but the difference is that with Gibbs' persistent injuries there's a good chance Monreal will be needed at LB a lot as well, whereas Sagna had the more reliably fit Jenks below him.

Given this I can't understand why we spent our last few hours of the transfer window focused on getting in Welbeck. Don't get me wrong, I'm perfectly happy with his signing, but it was quality rather than quantity we lacked up front, so we could have coped without. At the back though it's sheer numbers we need, and yet nothing. There were whisperings of interest in Nastasic in the last couple of hours (which would be a signing I'd be very pleased with!) but no movement and I'm not convinced negotiations were actually ongoing outside Wayne Veysey's head.

We had better hope Shad Forsythe is a miracle worker who can keep all our defenders fit, else this could be a long few months...