Desperately short is just 5 senior midfielders for 3 spots. However will we manage.
When one is Allen who you don't really want to be starting and it remains to be seen if Rudoni can play deeper.
You then have Sheaf, Eccles, Torp competing for two spots. If any one of them is injured you don't even have a choice which pair to play so you can't rotate based on form or fitness.
If its Sheaf + Torp/Eccles that is probably a decent midfield for this level but its not top 4 material, probably between 5th-10th is where we would place that midfield on quality. If Sheaf is out it probably drops to a lower half quality midfield pairing around 14th -18th.
Not sure its desperately short but it really does feel like the missing piece of the jigsaw, if we had a top class partner for Sheaf you would be more than happy to have Eccles and Torp in reserve/to rotate based on form and fitness and then you have Allen to fill in on the bench if we have a few out with injuries.
I know we can't do everything and get everyone we want at once but the worry is that by the time we've brought in the central midfielder we want, MVE will be gone, maybe Simms and Wright will be gone and we just go round in a cycle and never have all the jigsaw pieces together at the same time.
James obviously isn't the answer but can't help but feel we will miss our chance to get promoted because this wasn't addressed.