We seem to be the only club that needs five first team centre backs.
No we don't. You're missing the point. I'm talking about planning for injuries and building in flexibility. You then cite some teams who suffered no serious injuries in defence all season and who *did* have cover but just didn't need them.
Chelsea won the league with Terry, Cahill and Zouma. City finished 2nd with Kompany, Demichelis and Mangala. Arsenal 3rd with Koscielny, Mertesacker and Gabriel joining halfway through. Utd and Liverpool each had four .. yet it's vital we have five?
Chelsea won the league with Terry, Cahill, Zouma,
Aké and
Christensen (along with Ivanovic who can cover that position). The three main guys all stayed on top form and remained injury free so the back-ups only featured in 6 games between them.
But they were there!
City finished 2nd with Kompany, Demichelis, Mangala and Boyata (plus at least two top quality full-backs who are comfortable in that role).
"Arsenal 3rd with Koscielny, Mertesacker and Gabriel joining halfway through". But you forgot to mention their back-ups... Hayden and Chambers; both of whom got match time at centre back during the season - albeit very little, because - once again - the main guys remained injury free.
Those back up players would have spent more time on the pitch if Mertesacker or Terry or Kompany had spent a lengthy spell on the sidelines due to injury. Their respective managers were glad they didn't need them; but they didn't go into the season without the back-ups. Of course, in an ideal world you wouldn't need a big squad with a spare CB. But personally I never again want to see us in the kind of situation where we're forced to play Capoue at centre-back, or fielding a back four that includes Jenas and Huddlestone.
I suspect we're not going to agree on this though. So we'll just have to accept that I want more contingency built into the defence than you do. But it's just plain wrong to say that Chelsea only had 3 CBs when - in fact - they had five but were fortunate enough to only need three. Which is exactly what I'm proposing.