Bernie ?
Ake ?
I think that they get in “our best starting eleven” all day long. Of course, Bernie may not be here but Ake definitely will.
I’m assuming Bernie is gone, along with Gundo, Laporte and probably Walker.
Phillips plays minutes every game as we shuffle and rest midfielders, Alvarez comes on for Haaland or KDB at 60-70 mins, and Akanji and Ake rotate into the defence. Rodri gets some nice rest, as we have multiple DMs to help keep him fresh, and (heresy, I know…) Rice us developed into a more forward thinking player to relieve KDB.
There was a serious drop in performance, and expectation, when we rotated/rested even 4 players last season. We need to have slightly better squad depth, and for that we need players who are playing more minutes and whom Pep trusts.
Towards the end of the season, I mentioned (nit knowing he was carrying the injury) that KDB was 1 run away from tearing his hamstring, because he was being thrashed when he should have been putting his feet up after 60-70 minutes. The problem was, the drop off in the reshuffle was too great, especially with almost ANY injury in our midfield.
Accordingly, towards the end of the season, many of the players looked absolutely knackered by the 75th minute of tight games…games we had to win…including the FA Cup Final and the CL Final!
Pep needs more, better choices on the bench at times.
