Norwich (h) Leicester (h) Liverpool (a) Swansea (a) West Ham (h) Sunderland (a) Couple of cup fixtures coming up, so a lot for the tinkerman to think about. What are everyone's thoughts and predictions? Should he rotate to prioritise for the league or the cups?
I'd be tempted to play almost a second string for Leicester. Mentioned it on match thread but we really need to sort Fonte situation out. Otherwise one of Maya/Virgil is going to have to play every game upto and including semi final. Latest on Gardos?
Stephens could play as a CB against Norwich at least. Virgil doesn't seem to be affected by playing all the time, he is consistently superb.
If we lose all those league games we are right in the turds. I think we need two wins from the league. FA cup I dint care as much about as I think we are due a home loss to Arsenal.
With the dour style of play and lack of goals it is ironically the Liverpool game that may suit us best out of that lot. Frustrate them and somehow nick a goal is a possible outcome. The other games look less promising we are next to useless when we have to take the game to the opposition. Sent from my SM-N910F using Tapatalk
IF, and that's a big if we get knocked out by Liverpool and Norwich in the cups and don't win any of those league games then Puel is going to be under so much pressure. I don't think that will happen but Puel has to deliver some results from these games. It's all well and good beating Liverpool on Wednesday but if we lose 2-0 in the second leg what good has it done? **** all.
Gardos. McCarthy. Are they ever going to return? Both would surely be certain starters against Norwich if fit and available. Assuming neither are available, I think my next three XIs would be something like: NORWICH Lewis Martina Stephens Yoshida McQueen/Bertrand Davis Reed Clasie/PEH Redmond Jay Sims LEICESTER Forster Cedric Stephens Virgil McQueen JWP Romeu Reed/PEH Sims Long Tadic LIVERPOOL Forster Cedric Yoshida Virgil Bertand Davis Romeu Clasie Redmond Jay Tadic No-one who starts against Liverpool also starts in both of the previous two. And a fair amount of those who start against Liverpool, don't start against Leicester. (But it's that which in turn means we can maybe go slightly stronger vs Norwich than otherwise would have been the case)
Norwich 2-0 win Leicester 1-0 win Liverpool 1-0 but we win on pens Swansea 1-0 (back down with a bump) West Ham 1-1 Sunderland 2-0 win
If that's the case we won't actually get to play any of the other 5 games as the first one will last until the end of the universe!