Donley played about 8 minutes of football, I think he's played about the same amount of minutes as Alfie Whiteman has for the first team and most have probably forgotten Alfie Whiteman actually has first team minutes. Lankshear played 0 that season, despite being the PL2's top scorer and POTY.
I said last season Phillips and/ or Dorrington should've played. Just as Dorrington should've been given a chance in the side now. Both Dorrington and Lankshear should head out on loan this window or even permanently to be honest, there's even been permanent interest in Lankshear, both are being KWP'd at present and that does nothing for them or us. When you also consider we're being linked with Kolo Muani plus a CB being on the cards this month as well as Phillips and Vuskovic arriving in the summer, you have to wonder just what exactly is the point of them remaining?
Poch's team actually (surprisingly) won a ton of games over different years when Dembele was injured. The rut more came from when Eriksen's form dipped.
City also look like they've halted their rut now - somewhat thankfully! Quite enjoyed their drubbing of West Ham.
So yes, Donley got minutes last season. As did Mikey Moore, for that matter
Dorrington needs a loan because while being in our U21s will help with his fitness, it won't claw back the year of development he missed so a loan is the best prospect there as that would (hopefully) set him back on track. Lankshear is a more difficult one because while first team football is needed, what he needs is a few starts - but if he can't hold up the ball effectively, within half a dozen games he'd be getting 5-10 minute cameos from the bench in much the same way Dane Scarlett's loan career has gone, so we basically need to find the right loan for him rather than send him to the first club that makes an offer
Eriksen missing for Poch really wasn't an issue, because we needed to get the ball to him - and that's why Dembele being crocked/suspended was always an issue for Poch's team, because that cut off the supply line for him (and anyone else, for that matter), outside of Toby pinging one 80+ yards to Dele's feet, of course. And that's the thing about Rodri, Vieira et al: a team can handle a striker being out as there's always (alright,
usually...) somebody else they can call on to replicate their role in the team - but where teams fall apart is where the player who is key to their transitional phase isn't available, which Mickey Van certainly is for us
...though that does also betray an issue in our midfield, because Bissouma had the transitional role in the team early last season but he just doesn't do that anymore - and while this change was most likely due to Mickey Van vastly exceeding expectations that made Bissouma's role defunct, that does open up a whole bunch of questions about not looking for a DM with a very different profile to get more value out of Mickey Van's forward runs, as well as why we haven't switched back to Bissouma (or more likely Sarr, let;s be honest here...) taking on the transition role with Mickey Van absent because there's an obvious and regularly exploited gap there
