Tough FA Cup draw at Millwall for Leicester in the 3rd round. If they can get through that think they'd get a league game postponed on the 27th Jan Home game against Ipswich in January too so could work against us!
Thinking that we have reached safety today. 41 points means safety in this league well done Top 3 now look like breaking away but as has been said earlier African Nations Cup should take its toll on Leicester and why we don’t need to sign Diarra….
Away all day doing Santa with the grandkids. Great experience as always. Managed to keep reasonably up to date thanks to Twitter but as doc says looks like top three are breaking/have broken away. In other news Villa another incredible win. 15 in a row at home wow
Farke is doing an absolutely amazing job and he deserves enormous credit for both the way the team are playing and also for the calm professional manner he handled all the disruption immediately after his appointment. However we wouldn't have been in the mess we found ourselves in if we'd simply been able to appoint a top class coach when the awful decision to replace Marcelo Bielsa was taken. Any one of Unai Emery, Eddie Howe, Iraola, even Shaun Dyche or Gary O'Neil would have most likely kept us in the PL and also improved us into a top half team, unfortunately we instead had to endure the hapless Marsch and all the dross he brought with him. Hopefully valuable lessons have been learned by the 49ers.
Just so that Emu can blow a blood vessel the news that Byram will miss at least the next 2 games and Firpo is out injured for a lot longer, means we don’t have a LB. Djed Spense will have to be better than yesterday and let’s face it Archie wasnt ultra safe at RB. So selling 2 LBs because we had Firpo and Dallas was pants and another big bollox up still not rectified. Jammy is a FARKE fanboy but his insistence that Ayling, Cooper and Bamford is great for the team doesn’t add up. Bamford is a huge wage burden and Ayling now injures himself almost every time he crosses the whitewash. We need new blood in
It's really no great surprise that LB has become an issue. It's been coming for a while now Farke is doing well after a difficult start. Amazing isn't a word I'd use just yet. Amazing would be sitting in Leicester or Ipswich position. Let's face it, with the forward line we have at this level, we should be sitting top 4. Farke has done really well bringing the squad together though and hopefully this run of results continues.
Sunderland will pose even more problems as they have a squad capable of doing some damage. Jack Clarke and Niall Huggins for a start and Huggins one of the LBs we sold who is covering at RB due to injuries up there. Both will want to prove a point against Leeds. They have scored a lot of goals and have a better GD than Southampton. Even younger Bellingham is a handful. Would be nice to put them away in style but expecting our defence to be under pressure and Jack Clarke has 10 goals from the wings
If it comes to it I’m happy with Shackleton at LB at Sunderland. Hasn’t let anyone down when he’s played there. Not much difference between him and Byram imo.
I think it can be easily solved, I would set it up as follows. Spence. . Rodon Ampadau Struijk Gray. Kamala James. Rutter. Piroe. Summerville If we nullify Jack Clarke, silence the crowd early doors, three points job done
Sunderland aren't much better than Blackburn imo. We shouldn't be too worried. Jack Clarke wouldn't get in our team and not even sure he would be ahead of Anthony and Gnonto on the bench. They should be more worried about us than we should be worried about them. I'm not saying it's easy but yeah, we are a better squad than them and it's just a case of proving it on the night. We beat Blackburn yesterday without ever hitting anywhere near top gear.
Stick him on the bench to cover both fullback positions. Then bring him on later to get more game time under his belt. Piece of piss this manager malarkey
We had two good full back on the bench yesterday in Shackleton & Spence which is more than adequate cover as the 3rd left back and I'd say good squad building by Farke and the recruitment team. If they both were to get injured as well then yes we'd be down to the bare bones but we're some way off that yet.
This is a problem all over the park for me due to FARKE doing a Bielsa and not rotating or using subs early enough. Players on the fringes not getting game time and so like Spence not getting match fit. Gruev, Bamford, Joffy, Anthony, Joseph, Shackelton………
Fair point doc but no point in putting players on pitch sooner if they’re not good enough. Joffy and Bamford simply arent
They're definitely good for the squad Doc given that those you mention have previously achieved promotion with the club and are excellent senior pros to have around a young group of players. Farke made the decision in the summer to stick with them and actually Cooper & Ayling were both first choices back in August. The fact other players have now usurped them from the starting eleven bodes well for the future of the club though and therefore next season will likely be entirely different.
