We're currently one injury in each position away from fielding any or all of the following in a Premier League game:
Dan Bentley
Santi Bueno
Hugo Bueno
While Matt Doherty and Ki-Jana Hoever will both definitely start in 10 days' time as it stands, I actually don't know who would play in central midfield if one of our main pair were unavailable, and we have Sasa who hasn't kicked a ball since February 2024 as the sole back up to Strand Larsen.
It's a pretty poor state of affairs and you can see why people are itchy about it, and airily implying that it doesn't matter if we lose a load of games early on isn't the way to go.