The more you look at this squad, the holes in it, the lack of balance, the pace of it, the age of it. You have to lay that at the door of the director of football.
No left back cover - the manager ofc has sent all who could play there on loan
Martina as right back - because the manager wanted him and has basically frozen out the best young right back in the under 23/21 England set up
No width - well mainly because we have ostracised then sold any wide players we had and ones we have now we don't even put on the bench in Lookman, Mirallas, Lennon etc
No creativity in the centre and no tempo - because the manger chooses to play two holding midfielders every single game and it causes the problem
No width - because we play no wingers and thus the fullbacks cant get forward as they are isolated with nowhere to go when they do go forward
Playing so deep and shaky at the back - because we wont play Holgate at centre back and insist on playing Keane with a player with no legs and pace - so have to play deep
Lack of pace
Looking at the squad we have Coleman injured, Bolasie - injured, Barkley - effectively pushed out the club by the manager, Del - was pushed out the club, Lennon - nowhere to be seen, Lookman - nowhere to be seen. Kenny is far from slow - again nowhere to be seen. Hell even Niasse who i am the worst critic of had pace at least and was ostracised yet again by the manager.
Age if the squad, yeah it looks bad because we have a manager who won't or doesn't want to play the younger options.
The problems besides for a striker are directly at the door of the manager, not to say that we don't have balance and option issues, but when the manager goes to the extreme the way Koeman does then it magnifies any small problems into major ones