Well yeah, none of those are reliable or experienced enough to be considered a first XI player. It’s such a weak link.
Jones and Elliott will only get experience by playing games.
We could loan the out for a few seasons and buy 2 x 40M midfielders to replace them if money was no object.
Unfortunately we don’t have unlimited funds so that really isn’t an option.
General question, who are City’s 1st 4 midfield choices and what depth do they have beyond that (5th to 8th choice without converting forwards into midfielders)?
Then compare their 1st 4 midfield choices to ours. In terms of quality and availability.
City - Rodri, De Bruyne, Silva, Gundogan
Liverpool - Fabinho, Thiago, Henderson, Keita
Then compare City’s 5th to 8th choices to ours.
City - Phillips, Foden (though he played front 3 last season), Palmer, Herrera
Liverpool - Elliott, Jones, Milner, AOC
Looking at those breakdowns of midfielders what is our major issue(s)? Is it related to the 1st 4 midfield choices or the last 4?
In my opinion City have a better 1st choice 4. Arguably they have 4 better individual players than our equivalents. It’s equally arguable that they are better in only 1 or 2 comparisons. Overall though the quality is not that dissimilar in my opinion.
If you look at minutes played last season then City have a big advantage. All 4 of city’s primary midfield choices played over 3000 minutes each. We had 2 players break that 3000 minute barrier despite playing more games.
City’s 1st 4 midfielders played a combined ~14,000 minutes in 2021/22z
Liverpool’s 1st 4 midfielders players played a combined ~12,000 minutes in 2021/22.
That’s about the equivalent of 22 x 90 mins that we need to rely on our 5th to 8th choice midfielders that City don’t. Also our minutes are likely skewed by playing more games and therefore more opportunity to accumulate those 12k minutes.
Our reliance on our back up midfielders is the biggest concern. The pattern for that being the case in 2022/23 is already starting to emerge. That’s the worry for me and where we are worse than City - 1st 4 choice midfielders rather than depth.