I'm surprised that Sarr starts over Bentancur tbh, but plenty of pace and creativity on the bench to grab us our traditional consolation goal when we're 5-0 down. Johnson deservedly dropped. Radu needs a big, big game.
Hope we line up with Kulu at CF today, Son on the left and Odebert on the right. Glad we tightened the midfield playing Sarr with his high energy.
One or two journos said a week back that Ange’s plan was always for Johnson to start as first choice RW this campaign hence why we didn’t go for/ pulled out of the Neto race. It’s pretty damning that three games in, he’s already been benched after two horror shows. I still want to believe in the guy to become a real force but he strikes me as someone a bit blinded by the lights of being at a big club, often lacks the confidence to use his speed when in possession. Whether he overcomes that or not is anybody’s guess but if Odobert builds on his debut and Kulu carries on his impressive form since pre-season then it’s tough seeing Johnson back in the starting XI for a while.
Do we know why he is out? Is it a delayed reaction to the knee over-extension? Maybe something showed up on a scan?
On the other hand, Ange not dogmatically sticking to their chosen starting xi regardless of form or fitness is a drastic improvement on some managers we've had
You have to wonder why van de Ven wasn't subbed off after his injury against Everton. Strange decision. Could've hooked him at the break to save a sub window, even. We could do with looking at how we're dealing with some of our players when they're not 100%. Failing to sign a left-back looks like an increasingly poor decision. Hopefully they'll plan for something to happen in January. We don't even have one playing for the U21s, IIRC.
