The Club has confirmed that Sascha has a hamstring injury. Jol told reporters today that at half time on Saturday, " The doctor came in and said he couldn't carry on so I had to change it.â [Potential there for a debate whether he made the correct change] Anyway, Riether is now going to join Ruiz in the waiting room of the 'expert' in Germany and won't be back before January. What is it with hamstring injuries this year ?
There appears to be a pattern. Training methods perhaps or it could just be bad luck. Over the last few years we have been fortunate with injuries. Maybe its our year? Do we have the quality in depth to cope? We'll have to wait and see.
Kelly as sub at RB deary me. Not good enough I'm my book. I know people like him but I'm no fan. We were soft at the back before now we're poorer it must said.
Kelly's not as good as Reither, but he did well last season. Yes it weakens us, because we're losing our most consistently good player - can anyone remember a single bad game from him? - but Kelly isn't a bad back up. I don't think it's stretching it to argue that Reither is a contender for our player of the season so far. Any team would be weakened by losing a player in that kind of form.
More and more players are sidelined with hamstring injuries. Probably the training and strengthening methods have not caught up with the new type of play which is more stop-start and and explosive runs. Kelly is not a bad player. He did very well last year and I think we are going to become more solid defensively as he does not go so much forward as Riether.
Some are suggesting Kelly was the wrong player to bring on at right back. Can I ask who the other right back is that Jol should've brought on?
Someone (can't remember who) made the comment Bidley is referring to in one of the match threads, so I don't think he was getting at you CC (unless that was you, of course!). I noticed it at the time too, and thought it odd but I dismissed it as someone holding onto old prejudices against Kelly despite the evidence of last season. He's a decent enough player and the best available for the time being.
I suppose the suggestion could be he could've put Baird at RB (but his worst position) and could have bought on Karagounis or Kacaniklic. But Jol did have Kelly in his team when Tottenham finished 5th. But Numerous Fulham managers have opted to have Kelly as backup, or play someone else and not first choice. I sometimes wonder if he suffered from Diabetes or something because his energy levels seemed poor in the later stages of games. I wonder if Jol knows that Simon Davies could do a job at RB. But I think he'll keep picking Kelly. Let's hope for good news from Germany. Maybe Riether just wanted to go back to Germany for Christmas and the New Year.
It was me in the original post. It wasn't for anti-Kelly reasons, but rather because we needed a Plan B - our game was crying out for more than a simple one-for-one change at half time. And along the lines suggested by SuperBri.
