Southend defeat exposes lack of strength in depth

IT already seems like a long time ago, thanks to the all-embracing afterglow of the fine performance at Blackburn, but we shouldn’t leave Roots Hall, scene of the League Cup humiliation last week, just yet.

The day before, an overconfident Fergie sounded off, clearly not expecting any kind of repeat of the Crewe experience: “I’ve got a couple of nice young players in the Reserves but they are definitely too young for this situation,” he assured us. Well, those un-selected kids may have been too young but it appears from last Tuesday that O’Pie, Richardson et al are just too rubbish, which is rather more concerning.

Unsurprisingly the weekend papers were full of stories linking the likes of them plus Smith and Brown with January moves away and you do get a sense that Fergie and fans like me may be in rare agreement: we have a great first thirteen but not much else until you get down to the callow-kid level and that it’s time the axe fell on a few also-rans.