Carroll played 90 minutes in QPR's win on the weekend. Pritchard was suspended after picking up 5 yellows, a couple of which were for dissent.
Cheers PNP. Good for Carroll (assuming he played well) and sounds like Pritchard is getting some game time, even if he is getting banned. I've heard alot of good things about him and would be great to see them both feature for us as contenders for first team places, rather than as a last resort ala Livermore or Caulker. Sorry to go off piste. I agree with giving Lamela 90mins to see how he does. He hasn't really shown what he is capable of yet, hasn't really taken people on as confidently as I would have like, or gone round people as opposed to cutting in...saying that he has 2 assists, won an important header to set up the goal yesterday and ran in between the lines much better than Townsend so it's not been a bad start by any means. With a better understanding of English, and more minutes he could be a star...don't want to get carried away though.
Not having Defoe is really unfortunate, since he and Holtby have had an excellent understanding this year. Could we play Kane, and bring in Soldado later if we need a goal? Lamela and Holtby should start, clearly, as should Sandro and Kaboul (if fit). Throwing Chiriches in normally wouldn't make much sense, but here it seems better than the alternatives. Fryers should start. I don't know who we can start but Naughton, even though he played the whole game Sunday. I wouldn't start Dembele or Paulinho, in particular of Sunday's starters. One possibility is to play 6 players for half a game each; maybe Walker and Naughton, Kaboul and Vertonghen or Dawson, though we might want to only do 4 for two, to protect against the chance of a late injury.
I think the eight on the bench v Cardiff will all start tomorrow plus three of our U21s with a few of the more experienced first teamers on the bench.
Don't think that's a possibility, RS. You could try ringing our box office. You might be able to buy them and pick them up at Villa, somehow. They must have facilities for that.
Stop complaining Andre and just get on with it. He's moaning again about lack of preparation time for tonight's match, well many times in my last job and before I was pulled out of routine or I was just overworked but just rolled up my sleeves and did it. Shiite happens Andre.
Agreed. He is just giving out negative vibes at the moment, and giving the team an excuse for under performing. Villa won't exactly be different to any other game. Keep the ball, get wide men to cut in and shoot, don't let them rip us open with gabby, don't let benteke over power us. There. Easy.
He's not worried about tiredness, he's worried about muscle recovery and an increased chance of injuries if players play both games. Fergie complained anytime there was the slightest thing that wasn't right, maybe AVB's hoping he can get his message across doing the samething.
"He's not worried about tiredness, he's worried about muscle recovery and an increased chance of injuries if players play both games." No problem with that. But the current squad fitness status means he cannot swap out 11 for an equally fully fit 11. So AVB is going to have to show some literal management ability. Who does he risk from sunday ?? And how much max game time ?? How many Academy kids could he use, and which players ?? This is why he is paid a salary.
according to our ticket office, you can just turn up at villa park and buy tickets for the spurs end !
