Injuries - 2023/24 | Ederson cleared to return to training (p 146)

The last game showed me how much we miss John Stones. In my opinion, more than anyone. His skill to bring the ball into midfield is huge in overload terms. No matter the wonderful player that Ruben is, he simply does not have that in his locker in the same way.
In all honestly, like a lot of City fans I thought John Stones was a bit of an error prone donkey at first (having him in matches in Central defence alongside Otamendi certainly didn't fill me with much confidence).
However the last few seasons have proved that he is a pretty skilful, cultured, intelligent player with a different side to his game.
It was good to hear the City fans loudly singing his name when we were presented with the Premier League trophy in May (which he mentioned in interviews)
Just need to get on top of those injuries!
 
In all honestly, like a lot of City fans I thought John Stones was a bit of an error prone donkey at first (having him in matches in Central defence alongside Otamendi certainly didn't fill me with much confidence).
However the last few seasons have proved that he is a pretty skilful, cultured, intelligent player with a different side to his game.
It was good to hear the City fans loudly singing his name when we were presented with the Premier League trophy in May (which he mentioned in interviews)
Just need to get on top of those injuries!
Vincent Kompany describes him as the best defender he has ever played with, and that will do me.
 
This was interesting comment on game minuets played. Granted we played most games in England but Saka is being burnt out so the number for minutes played was simialr to Saka for most of the squad…

In all competitions last season:

Saka = 3,733 minutes

Bernardo = 3,608 minutes
Grealish = 3,474 minutes
Mahrez = 3,060 minutes

Salah = 4,292 minutes
Bruno = 5,156 minutes



 
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To be fair we were very lucky last season with injuries, if we had lost Kev and any other highly experienced players Gundo or Bernie for a few months we wouldnt have won what we did.
You're always gonna get players picking up knocks and being out for a couple of weeks and you can cope with that if you have the quality, but for the last few weeks we've had no Kev, Bernie, Grealish or Stones and no Rodri (admitted due to a bit of stupidity).

The injuries this year are as a result of both last seasons achievements and the world cup.

We also know that new players take a good 6 months to bed into Pep's style of football. What we should have done was landed maybe a Nunes or Doku last season in preparation for Gundo and Mahrez going but the offers for them wrongfooted the club meaning that they left earlier than anticipated.
Yes, 3 of the 4 players we brought in had essentially no preseason and then Pep was out for two weeks. And two are 21. So it should be an even slower start than normal.
 
Yes, 3 of the 4 players we brought in had essentially no preseason and then Pep was out for two weeks. And two are 21. So it should be an even slower start than normal.
those 2 are not only 21 but new to the league as well. pep talked about the lack of training time with new players again yesterday. and he planned to use the 8 days without games before sheffield to work with them and then the surgery happened.

also, pep will stick to his small squad approach.
 
If he's not deemed fit to play in the biggest game of the season, how can he accept an England call-up?

Southgate was out of order for picking him in the first place. He's missed the entire season, his only focus should be getting fit.

I'll be mightily pissed off if he doesn't pull out of the squad, and so will Pep.
 

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