Agreed, although a family emergency could be worst case scenario! Sod football when it comes to those kind of things. But yes, you are quite right in that it may well be why he wasn't named in the squad as well.
Playing Devils advocate here - How important are they though given our start , and the amount of playing time they have had ? If we get injuries though ..........
Precisely this, and we will. That's why it's so critical to have a strong squad, which thankfully we have the makings of.
Another win that almost didn't feel like a win, even though we won. If you know what I mean. Was like an away game for large periods, but we took our chances and Swansea muffed theirs. I'm sure many Saints fans don't quite know how to accept having a good team. Only down side was the empty seats. Swansea not taking full allocation aside, could have got another 2,000 SFC fans in today... and they are out there, but clearly deciding not to go to games. Ticket prices too high?
We would definitely like to see a bit more of Cork, and I'm sure Morgan and Vic can't play every game, but I don't like the idea of rotating centre backs. Ideally we want a solid partnership to play as many games together as possible. And we have one. If Yoshida was to desire a move away, I don't think he'd be particularly hard to replace anyway. You really need a few players who are happy to be on the bench most of the time. Fergie always managed to find plenty of those.
Only Saints fans would be "worried" about players who are not good enough to dislodge the better players who are playing well and winning us games.
Well that's the problem, the thought of Morgan or Cork getting a 6 week injury last year gave me sleepless nights. That's why getting an extra CM was priority number 1, obviously it's a challenge for Poch to manage them all, but if a player like that leaves, we're gonna need to replace them. I am sure Cork will play games this season anyway.
I agree on CBs for the most part, but the reverse is also true, IMO: you want the third CB worked in enough during good times so that, when you really need them (and we probably won't get 38 games from both Fonte and Lovren) they aren't a complete stranger back there.
So you want Lovren or Fonte dropped, just so another player "isn't a stranger". Are you ****ing stupid?
I think we are in danger of over analysing this. A team wins a game by scoring more goals than the other team...if you do this, it is a good thing. In fact, it is such a good thing they give you three points for it. If you get more points than other teams, you are placed higher in the table...this is also a good thing. So are we all clear...we are happy.
Would you rather that a player was getting their season debut against, say, a toothless Fulham at home, or in the midst of our ridiculously difficult December schedule?
Wouldn't have added your final comment, but agree with the sentiment. We are winning at the moment...we don't want to lose matches/points because we want a player to get game time in case we need them later. Mauricio will deal with that when it happens and will pray it doesn't.
I'll agree we will see more of Cork, he wouldn't be easy to replace and I don't think he'll leave anyway. He's better technically than Wanyama but I will admit that Wanyama has tightened up our defensive play much more. All 3 of our CMs are worthy of a start, it's just a shame they don't all fit into our system. Hopefully Cork will get his chance though. As far as Yoshida is concerned I was a fan of his last season but the way Fonte and Lovren are playing atm, there's no way you can even consider breaking that up.
Better to play our best team against Fulham and get points...if you mess around with the team, you could drop points against Fulham and still lose the 'difficult' games.
Christ, and I am often accused of being negative, but we certainly have a few on here who are DESPERATE to pick some warped negative theory about what MIGHT happen. Just enjoy what IS happening. This sort of thing doesn't happen very often. Enjoy it. I dare you.
