Premier League squad depth comparison: All 20 teams
Written by Dan on September 1, 2011
Now that the summer transfer window has finally closed, we know what our squad looks like for the season. Or at least until January. A lot of fans are a little nervous; what if we get a few serious injuries?
What if we don’t though? Isn’t our main core of players pretty strong?
Here’s a similar thought: What if one or two of our immediate competitors suffer injuries? How deep does their quality run?
We’ll get confirmation of the 25-man Premier League squads shortly – I’ll follow up with those when they’re published – but I’ve used the font of all knowledge, Wikipedia, to knock up a quick matrix of sorts.
The table below is obviously too small to read, clicking this link will take you to the full sized version and should allow you to scroll horizontally though the clubs.
As I say, the source data came from Wikipedia (yeah, yeah, I know), I’ve just manipulated it in a spreadsheet for comparative purposes. I don’t know about you, but with only the league and Carling Cup to contend with this side of January, I don’t think we’ve got a great deal to be concerned about.
Well, okay, I do know about you… you’re still concerned, aren’t you? Hmmmm, well there isn’t much I can do in that case, perhaps you can be distracted with some random factoids.
Some random factoids
If you’re interested, here’s a little information that was easily extractable by playing with the Wikipedia data:
Positions | Total | GK | DF | MF | FW |
Swansea | 37 | 3 | 12 | 16 | 6 |
West Brom | 36 | 3 | 10 | 15 | 8 |
Wolves | 36 | 3 | 11 | 15 | 7 |
Bolton | 35 | 3 | 12 | 11 | 9 |
Liverpool | 33 | 4 | 12 | 10 | 7 |
QPR | 33 | 4 | 11 | 11 | 7 |
Man Utd | 32 | 5 | 8 | 12 | 7 |
Stoke | 31 | 3 | 9 | 13 | 6 |
Arsenal | 30 | 4 | 9 | 10 | 7 |
Newcastle | 30 | 4 | 7 | 12 | 7 |
Norwich | 30 | 2 | 10 | 11 | 7 |
Blackburn | 29 | 2 | 11 | 8 | 8 |
Man City | 29 | 4 | 11 | 9 | 5 |
Aston Villa | 28 | 4 | 11 | 9 | 4 |
Tottenham | 28 | 3 | 8 | 13 | 4 |
Everton | 27 | 2 | 9 | 9 | 7 |
Wigan | 27 | 4 | 9 | 9 | 5 |
Chelsea | 26 | 3 | 8 | 9 | 6 |
Sunderland | 24 | 3 | 5 | 9 | 7 |
Fulham | 23 | 2 | 7 | 9 | 5 |
English | British | |||||
Norwich | 18 | 60% | Norwich | 24 | 80% | |
Bolton | 19 | 54% | Swansea | 26 | 70% | |
Stoke | 16 | 52% | Wolves | 23 | 64% | |
Liverpool | 16 | 48% | West Brom | 22 | 61% | |
QPR | 16 | 48% | Bolton | 21 | 60% | |
West Brom | 17 | 47% | Liverpool | 19 | 58% | |
Aston Villa | 13 | 46% | Aston Villa | 16 | 57% | |
Wolves | 16 | 44% | Stoke | 17 | 55% | |
Newcastle | 13 | 43% | QPR | 18 | 55% | |
Sunderland | 10 | 42% | Sunderland | 13 | 54% | |
Everton | 11 | 41% | Man Utd | 15 | 47% | |
Man City | 11 | 38% | Newcastle | 14 | 47% | |
Man Utd | 12 | 38% | Blackburn | 13 | 45% | |
Tottenham | 10 | 36% | Everton | 11 | 41% | |
Blackburn | 10 | 34% | Tottenham | 11 | 39% | |
Swansea | 11 | 30% | Man City | 11 | 38% | |
Chelsea | 7 | 27% | Wigan | 10 | 37% | |
Wigan | 7 | 26% | Fulham | 7 | 30% | |
Arsenal | 6 | 20% | Chelsea | 7 | 27% | |
Fulham | 4 | 17% | Arsenal | 7 | 23% |
And as many, many people have already pointed out; our first choice back four is now likely to feature a Scotsman, a Welshman, an Irishman and an Englishman. Hopefully there are no punchlines to that.