my concern if e benno is out for the season is would could be short of 'out and out' wingers. pilks is a bit injury-prone so that's a risk. that leaves snoddy and redmond. i know olssen and whitakker can cover but as above that's not their natural position, so leaves us short if one of pilks or snoddy go out. my opinion of course on the flip-side, it could mean an opportunity for Josh Murphy - he went on the US tour so could be in the plans for at least a few squad appearances this season
I've not seen Pilks play on the right although i'm pretty sure he could! Redmond played an absolute blinder on the right for England U21s a few weeks back so i've seen that he is very capable of playing there! IMO he will start RM and Olsson will play on the left with Garrido behind. I don't think we will risk starting Snoddy and I haven't heard anything recently relating to Pilks returning, not even in the news conference yesterday. Or did I miss it?
i think max might be right. i'd be wary of adding another new winger. i think if we get any more injuries i'd like to see josh murphy given an opportunity. whether that ends up being the case i don't know. i would have said 'go and get andros townsend on loan' but he's banned for a while! it is a shame that the start to this season has been so blighted by injuries. we still don't really know how good we are and might not know until much deeper into the season.
We only have a 25 man squad and we have the following who can play wide midfield E Bennett - assume out for the season Snod Olsson Redmond Pilks Whittaker So we have two to play and three to cover. Even if both our full backs were out we would still have two to play, one on the bench plus a Murphy if needs dictated. I just don't see why people are so concerned about the loss of one wide player who is not a first choice anyway. I like and rate EB but we can't go out and buy a replacement every time a squad member is injured. On another matter if he is out for the season then presumably his squad position could be made vacant for someone else regardless of position. We still have arguably one of the best squads in the club's history and if we need to strengthen we will have funds in January to do so. I'd hate to see us rush out and buy an EB replacement and then find we had real need elsewhere which we could not address.
We've been very lucky with injuries in the last few seasons, Ruddy last year being the exception. Had we had the injuries we have now at the start of last season it would have been a disaster, we would have been worried about the starting line up we put out, rather than this year where we are now talking about who will cover that starting line up. It really is a testiment to the management that we have a few people out injured who would be first choice, but we are not overly worried about who comes in to replace them, as the competition for places is so good.
The only report of a 'cruciate ligament' injury was in the Daily Fail. At the Press Conference, CH said 'ligament' and that it would be a 'matter of months'. I wonder if we might see a loan deal to provide cover, though Diego Capel would be a good addition! As for cover, Pilks has played on the right for City with Surman on the left (mainly before Snods arrived). Never seemed as effective there though. Redmond plays on either wing for sure. Olsson can certainly play LM and did so in the pre-season. Not so sure about Whittaker though. Given that Snods was a virtual ever-present last season, it doesn't seem that much of a worry.
norfolkboy, if that's a question for me about the concern, then i'm not concerned, just expressing an opinion which i am allowed to do. i get your point about cover, my angle is more about the quality of cover in those positions i.e the full backs. i doubt we will buy another winger but it's worthy of a discussion.
What's Townsend been up to? I must have missed that story, though to be honest this is the first I'd heard about Benno as well - how did he do his knee in?
betting on matches. banned for a few months. can still play in europe, as was the case last night benno is out until the new year if recovery goes accordng to plan. its not a cruciate ligament injury
The comments prompted by Bennett's injury seem to take for granted that we will be playing with the same width as we did last season. Why are we assuming that? I think it quite possible that we will play with less width, with the "wide" midfielders tucked in more and orthodox width provided by the full backs. If that is so, we should be thinking more in terms of a "forward four" and less in terms of "wingers". With Pilkington and Snodgrass not yet 100%, plus the injury to Bennett, we may soon get an indication of CH's thinking.
Annoys me that the Daily Rag constantly makes stuff up and gets away with it. One of the worst papers for accuracy, so we should see him back in the new year which is the good news amongst the bad. I think we will be ok we can shuffle our team around until then.
i actually said something similar at the weekend. although we played with wide men we played quite narrow as a team with both players switching position and also contributing centrally to the play. having said that we are playing to those players strengths by maintaining decent width.
More true of Pilks than Redmond I'd say; and Snoddy is very comfortable coming inside. I was struck by how easy it would be, with our new signings, to set up in a way very similar to Everton. Baines and Coleman provided the real attacking width, Pienaar and Miralles played in a forward four with Jelavic and Barkley.
Max - my post was a response to several, not yours. I don't think it stated that you, or indeed anyone else was not entitled to an opinion or even that you or anyone else were wrong it merely expressed my thoughts on the matter. I am genuinely surprised that given the depth and strength of our squad compared to previous seasons people are worried about (albeit a pretty bad injury) to someone whose primary role is cover when, as outlined in my post, we appear to have a lot of cover in the iwde positions.
looks as though willian is going to opt for chelsea over spurs. do chelsea really need him or are they buying him for the sake of stopping a rival (if spurs are) getting a brilliant player? i can't see how mourinho will keep seven or eight top notch players happy when there is only three spaces available for them.
Jose's supposedly not that keen on Mata (who knows why). Could you see him going abroad somewhere on loan? Hazard will play, as will Oscar, Schurrle, Van Ginkel and, De Bruyne. No room for Moses in my opinion.
