There was a time when teams would win the league while using the same starting XI week after week. Liverpool won the title in 1965/66 even though Bill Shankly only called upon 14 players, and Aston Villa repeated the trick in 1981. Those days are long gone. Managers need 18 simply to name a full complement for a match these days, and they have to name a squad of 25 (with no more than 17 non-homegrown players) for the Premier League. And many clubs take this to extreme lengths by compiling bloated squads, which can often come about when endless managerial changes mean they are always buying players for the new man in charge. This can leave some very good players on the outside looking in,...
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