Agreed. He could have at least been a useful squad player but he must have been injured for 70-80% of his Spurs career. Poch can't be blamed for that.
He's certainly the sort of backup LB we need: he stays wide and looks to cross the ball that means we can use subs to tweak our tactics, plus his set piece ability is a useful weapon to have in the locker Basically the Kieran Trippier to Udogie's Kyle Walker
The fact Sessegnon had been on the injured list for the best part of two months before we signed him, because Poch was again adamant on one player and one player only without considering alternate options or the fact Sess' medical surely would have made it abundantly clear he wouldn't be playing for at least a couple of months longer, definitely lands on Poch And it's the last part that definitely puts the blame on Poch: hamstring injuries are seldom one and done, so Sessegnon showing up for his medical practically one-legged should have been an indicator that he'd have further hamstring issues in the future given the severity of the injury he showed up with
There is a definite correlation between Mitchell leaving and our transfer business becoming increasingly erratic and disjointed. Poch's record in the market was my main reason to not want him back last summer and tbh his business at Chelsea has only reinforced that position. As others have said, he may have flourished working with Munn, Lange and Paratici, but there were pretty strong reports that Poch himself had no interest in working with a DoF.
I can't recall ever seeing Sess putting in a good cross and to compare him to Trippier is frankly an insult to a player who I personally didn't even rate very highly.
Sadly I think you are right. The combination of his playing style + speed + sheer size makes it almost inevitable that he will be haunted by those injuries throughout his career unless he drastically changes his playing style.
I don’t think the team’s style helps in that regard. I mean I don’t particularly want it changed as Ange-ball in full flow is a great watch (though we’ve barely seen it for months now) but the high risk high reward tactic he deploys isn’t just about results, it’s player’s fitness too. The amount of recoveries van de Ven has to make in games is basically an invite to a pulled/ torn hammy and he’s duly obliged twice now.
Yeah with the current squad it definitely ain’t. Need those in charge to have another good summer like last, few more Vicario’s, van de Ven’s and Maddison’s would be great.
I’ve heard Ange had a lot of injuries in his first season at Celtic too, then it settled down second season when the squad got used to it. Maybe we’ll see a repetition here. That plus a deeper squad and we could be alright.
Likely the reason we're being linked with Ederson of Atalanta, as per Alasdair Gold While it's pretty much a given that Hojbjerg is off this summer, I'm starting to wonder if Bissouma might be headed out the door too On the subject of Serie A signings (and left-footed CBs) the Gazetta dello Sport are linking us with Bologna's CB (and Luka Modric lookalike) Riccardo Calafiori, with a €25m pricetag being bandied about
This is true but Celtic rarely had to work for 90mins in games so could ease up and bring off players etc
I’d rather be realistic and expect what usually happens to happen rather than everything working out by magic
