Scott Palguta Depth Meter – Hendry Thomas Edition

It's not like we haven't seen a giant influx of talent in the midfield this year already, but losing Pablo Mastroeni pretty much kept the Scott Palguta Depth Meter at a two in the middle of the park all season. Fortunately, they made a move to try and get a Pablo Mastroeni replacement, and he has EPL credentials. It's a low risk, high reward signing considering they can dump him after this season if he doesn't do well so it should be fun watching him audition.

So how does the depth meter look with the addition of Thomas?

For the uninitiated, the Palguta depth meter measures just how close we are to seeing below replacement-level players like Scott Palguta hit the field as a starter. One Palguta head is ideal, as it means there's plenty of depth to spare. Four heads means that we have hit peak Palguta, watch out!

FORWARD:

You would think that losing Edu for a few weeks would actually boost the stock of the forward crop but it seems that absolutely nobody has been able to put the ball into the back of the net recently. Conor Casey seems to be the only person coming close, with Omar Cummings looking almost worse than he did in 2011 lately. The other group behind them has been doing just as well, which knocks forwards down a notch even though they are clearly a talented group. They just need to start being both talented and productive.

PALGUTA LEVEL: 2

MIDFIELD:

Hendry Thomas, guys. Hendry Thomas. Is he the answer to take over for Pablo Mastroeni? Who knows? Will he probably play better than Joseph Nane and Wells Thompson at holding midfielder? I'd say so, even if he is at 80% fitness right now. There's some concern with the attacking options as the goals have dried up for Kamani Hill and Jamie Smith has waffled between decent and terrible but Rivero/Castrillon are still doing their jobs as well as we can expect at this point with the team tanking.

PALGUTA LEVEL: 1

DEFENSE:

The defense is pretty much unchanged and though they have been played better as of late, there's still something lacking there especially in the center. Perhaps this would be higher if Tyson Wahl was being played in the middle, but Pareja has clearly shown he finds Wahl to be more of a left back. Still the biggest problem on the team in terms of defense, unless Thomas is played at CB instead of D-Mid.

PALGUTA LEVEL: 3