Looking at the list and it's dire in terms of strength in depth. Any injuries anywhere and we're down to the bare bones. Teams like Wigan, Wire, Huddersfield, Hull have 20-22 senior players or younger players that are already good enough. We don't have 17.

I'd like to see us resign all of Flannery, Gardner and Pryce. If we don't we'll be massively lacking in depth next year, even worse than we are this.

I think we will line-up something similar to:

Wellens, Gardner, Shenton, Meli, Foster, Hohaia, Lomax, Perry, Roby, Laffranchi, Soliola, Wilkin, TP.

Clough, LMS, Flannery, Wheeler

However, I would personally like to see:

Lomax, Gardner, Shenton, Meli, Foster, Pryce, Hohaia, Perry, Roby, Laffranchi, Soliola, Wilkin, Wellens

TP, Clough, LMS, Wheeler

Give over.

So Hull have "20-22 senior players or younger players that are already good enough" and "we don't have 17", yet we're sat 6 points clear of them despite having so many injuries.

Reverse the positions and put a fit/happy Eastmond/Pryce into the Saints side and take Brough/Brown out of the Hudds halves (and Tomkins/Deacon from Wigan and Briers/Myler from Wire) all season and how do you think the table would look?

Don't exaggerate so much, you make decent points when you're being sensible.

Wigan's bench this season is likely to feature:

Hock
Lima
Fielden
Hansen/Farrell

Can we really compete with that, this or next season without at least 2, if not 4 signings?

I'm not exaggerating. Our squad depth isn't good enough. For about the last 6 or 7 years we have released signed fewer players into the club than we have released. The difference being made up by academy products all the time. I might be wrong, but I just get the feeling if you listed the number of experienced players in each squad, we'd have the least. Might be because we've had 5.16 out per game this season mind.

There was a thread about this exact subject from 2011, created around June 2010 where we discuss this exact subject. I mention our weak squad depth and Wheeler being a biscuit and how he won't play 12 games and Blobby guarantees he'll play 20.

I think you lot are in denial. We're not as good as the top 3 sides and need to improve both on the field and in terms of squad quality and depth if we're to catch them.

Saddened! my little sweetpea, you are getting a tad hysterical. We don't have the right attitude this season and we have two inexperienced halfbacks. But our pack, if complete (including Scott Moore whose feistiness we really miss), is a match for any other pack in the league, without exception, so long as each member of it turns up to a game with the right attitude. Oh, and remembers their basic skills of how to catch a ball. Probably the two are connected, actually. Catching the ball requires focus, something our team is sadly lacking at present.

Not really, you just see my name and assume that. I'm saying we're not as good as the top 3, not that we'll finish outside the top 8 or get relegated and replaced by Leigh.

The teams we have been capable of putting on the pitch this season are not as good as the teams the top 3 have been able to field, no question.

Had Hudds played us in May with the equivalent of Pryce/Eastmond/TP/Flannery/Moore/Clough/Gaskell/Lomax/Wheeler/Dixon missing do you think they might just have struggled a wee bit?

You seem to be hanging a lot on the fact we didn't beat Huddersfield - with a pack/bench including Ashurst/Magennis/Armstrong/Makinson/Hale and with Ashe/Wilkin in the halves, are you SERIOUSLY suggesting that is a pointer for us being a worse squad and team?

given a fair run with injuries we can certainly compete with the top 3. We had a poor result on Friday, but even that squad that we considered relatively healthy (which it was compared to the Hudds team) had Perry, Pryce, Clough, Moore and Wheeler missing who would all be in out first choice 17 (three of them in the dominated pack).

I also don't think you give enough credence to the toll that playing with 10 players out for a period has on those left behind, particularly the likes of Graham/Roby/TP/LMS.

If we can get some bodies back it will freshen everybody up and we'll certainly be VERY competitive with the current top3.

Very sensible response. There is way too much knee-jerking from some of your fans this season. Ive said it before but to be where you are in the table this minute under the circumstances which you have been presented is pretty unbelievable in my opinion.

Its as though you string some decent wins together, then because you lost to Hudds with half a team missing, got beat last friday by a Wigan side that arguably played unbeatable rugby, that the squad needs massive changes? Its bizarre.

You speak as if we have stopped producing players! This season we have promoted some new players to our squad, many of whom had their debuts but some didn't. Of the three that didn't, two were second rowers and one a prop. We're still producing. It was right to give Ashurst and Dixon a couple of seasons to show the club what they have to offer. Personally, I don't think either of them are up to the standard we need (jury still out on Magennis as he hasn't had as much game time as the other two). Personally, I'd like to see a couple of the newly promoted guys take their places now and again during the remainder of the season to see whether they offer us more.