Tam @Claudius I stand by my general point here but I accept that’s a curt response. Apologies.
To engage more with your comment, my point wasn’t that we have dependencies, it’s that we are overly dependent in certain areas. Midfield being the worse I feel. Kiwior in for Gabriel has been a refreshing surprise. It’s caused issues, but Kiwior has generally performed well whereas Raya and Saliba have fared quite poorly compared to their high standards. That’s their cross to bear (pun intended) though, I don’t think their poor showings are any more acceptable because it’s not Gabriel beside them.
I accept others have their dependencies. City are a shadow without Rodri. You’d expect Liverpool would be without Van Dijk. But elsewhere they can weather changes somewhat better than we can in our midfield. Liverpool’s midfield is most robust as a grouping. City have other options that can come in and still maintain a form of how they wish to play. We can’t.
