Injuries 2024/25 | Ake & Bobb return to training

cleavers said:
Watching his conference today, I think we have more than "13 players" available for tomorrow, we'll see tomorrow though.
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Yes I think we have more than 13 as he’ll utilise the academy as he said. I reckon the 13 refers to first teamer’s. We need to get through these 3 games relatively unscathed, get a few back after the break and we can get back on track
 
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levets said:
Yes I think we have more than 13 as he’ll utilise the academy as he said. I reckon the 13 refers to first teamer’s. We need to get through these 3 games relatively unscathed, get a few back after the break and we can get back in track
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I think we'll be surprised when the team is announced.
 
SebastianBlue said:
I haven’t been able to catch up through all of the pages of posts since this thread was created last night — has anyone been able to provide a list of players that were available to be acquired in the summer that would have been happy sitting on the bench (or staying completely out of the team) until a member (of our full senior squad to start the season) picked up an injury?

Genuinely interested in who we should have signed and how it would have impacted the composition of the match day squad!
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I don’t have any issues with the small squad and fully understand the arguments for it but I think that policy relies very heavily on having versatile players who can fill a number of positions.

Personally I am
not sure we have struck the balance this year.

For example we could arguably field a choice of 6 players on the right of the front three, Savinho, Foden, Doku, Bernardo, McAtee, Bobb and yet we don’t have a replacement for Haaland if injured or someone to replace him for low key matches to provide the player with a break over a long season.

Now people could argue we can play a false nine etc, which would be a fair point, but even against the likes of Slovan, Sparta Prague Pep has not felt confident enough to leave the main guy out. So it’s not something he is clearly confident to do in even lesser matches presumably due to the drop off in performance.

It’s not rocket science to know an injury is inevitable at some point, over the course of a long season, it’s our preferred formation and we don’t have any realistic replacement.

Whether we could have gotten him is debatable but I suggested Marcus Thurman in the close season. Can play left, as a 10, and Is now playing as a main striker. His versatility would have guaranteed him game time even if not necessarily as a striker.

Anyway that ship has sailed as he has gone from a 1 in 3 goalscorer to a goal a game player, so his value will have gone through the roof.

Mbeumo might have been another one we could have considered.
 
franksinatra said:
I don’t have any issues with the small squad and fully understand the arguments for it but I think that policy relies very heavily on having versatile players who can fill a number of positions.

Personally I am
not sure we have struck the balance this year.

For example we could arguably field a choice of 6 players on the right of the front three, Savinho, Foden, Doku, Bernardo, McAtee, Bobb and yet we don’t have a replacement for Haaland if injured or someone to replace him for low key matches to provide the player with a break over a long season.

Now people could argue we can play a false nine etc, which would be a fair point, but even against the likes of Slovan, Sparta Prague Pep has not felt confident enough to leave the main guy out. So it’s not something he is clearly confident to do in even lesser matches presumably due to the drop off in performance.

It’s not rocket science to know an injury is inevitable at some point, over the course of a long season, it’s our preferred formation and we don’t have any realistic replacement.

Whether we could have gotten him is debatable but I suggested Marcus Thurman in the close season. Can play left, as a 10, and Is now playing as a main striker. His versatility would have guaranteed him game time even if not necessarily as a striker.

Anyway that ship has sailed as he has gone from a 1 in 3 goalscorer to a goal a game player, so his value will have gone through the roof.

Mbeumo might have been another one we could have considered.
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I appreciate the thoughtful response.

I agree on some points, but I think people perhaps misunderstand Pep’s plans if Haaland were to get injured: that is, we were never planning to replace him directly if he gets injured, but rather play a false nine, for which we have many candidates for the role.
 
SebastianBlue said:
I appreciate the thoughtful response.

I agree on some points, but I think people perhaps misunderstand Pep’s plans if Haaland were to get injured: that is, we were never planning to replace him directly if he gets injured, but rather play a false nine, for which we have many candidates for the role.
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Well I agree that is the plan because there is not another possible option.

I question though how confident Pep is on this plan as like I said Haaland, besides against Spurs, has hardly had a break this season and even against the Champs lge cannon fodder the false 9 has not been utilised. Further to that we did have a replacement in Alvarez so Pep had planned to continue with an out and out striker, until Alvarez and the money on offer made the transfer inevitable.

I think you are right we have a lot of options but we seem lacking in goals from other positions of late and I think playing without a striker would be a big boost to teams adopting a low block.
 
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franksinatra said:
Well I agree that is the plan because there is not another possible option.

I question though how confident Pep is on this plan as like I said Haaland, besides against Spurs, has hardly had a break this season and even against the Champs lge cannon fodder the false 9 has not been utilised. Further to that we did have a replacement in Alvarez so Pep had planned to continue to with an out and out striker, until Alvarez and the money on offer made the transfer inevitable.
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I thought I'd seen that the intention was to utilise Bobb as the false 9. Obviously, injury has fucked that up somewhat
 
citizen_maine said:
I thought I'd seen that the intention was to utilise Bobb as the false 9. Obviously, injury has fucked that up somewhat
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Possibly, but it’s a huge ask from a player with so little first team football to fill that void. It might work against lesser sides but if Haaland was injured at the back end of the season and were chasing wins, I would worry we’re a bit light.

As an example Arsenal have the options of Trossard, Jesus, Havertz. Liverpool Nunez, Salah, Gakpo.

That is not knocking him by the way. I posted on here pre-season for me, watching him develop, was the most exciting thing about the new season.

I suppose only time will tell, hopefully Haaland stays fit and I am proven very wrong but it appears a huge gamble.
 
franksinatra said:
Possibly, but it’s a huge ask from a player with so little first team football to fill that void. It might work against lesser sides but if Haaland was injured at the back end of the season and were chasing wins, I would worry we’re a bit light.

As an example Arsenal have the options of Trossard, Jesus, Havertz. Liverpool Nunez, Salah, Gakpo.

That is not knocking him by the way. I posted on here pre-season for me, watching him develop, was the most exciting thing about the new season.

I suppose only time will tell, hopefully Haaland stays fit and I am proven very wrong but it appears a huge gamble.
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As we've not played a false 9 since Erling's been here, it's difficult to know who might be best suited to it. We might have several options. Guess we'll see if/when we need it
 
Nightmare situation, really. 8 injuries would be a crisis for any club and with a squad as small as ours we really are down to bare bones.

Injuries happen, and with long, packed seasons of playing more and more games for club and country, the risk to players is only increasing.

The club does what it can to allow players to rest but probably needs to look at bolstering the squad more, both through using youth players more and through buying a couple of more senioe players. We've got quite a lot of players who are great playing every 7-10 days but whose bodies simply can't withstand playing twice a week for months on end.

We can't buy or promote enough players to make 8 injuries not a problem but we've got to try to make it a little bit less of a disaster.
 
Looks like we'll be 'Travellin' Light' - empty spaces in the dugout again - it's happened before

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johnny crossan said:
It's not a position Foden seems to relish.
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No, but you can understand the thinking, he likes central roles and he can finish well, last season is testament to that, but he really doesn't seem comfortable at false 9 at the moment. That might change.
 
My team guess for tomorrow

Ederson;
Rico Lewis, Manuel Akanji, John Stones, Nathan Aké;
Bernardo Silva, Mateo Kovačic, İlkay Gündoğan;
Phil Foden, Erling Haaland (F/L), Matheus Nunes:

Bench: Stefan Ortega, Scott Carson, Rúben Dias, Joško Gvardiol, James McAtee, Nico O'Reilly, Jacob Wright, Jahmai Simpson Pusey.​
 
franksinatra said:
Possibly, but it’s a huge ask from a player with so little first team football to fill that void. It might work against lesser sides but if Haaland was injured at the back end of the season and were chasing wins, I would worry we’re a bit light.

As an example Arsenal have the options of Trossard, Jesus, Havertz. Liverpool Nunez, Salah, Gakpo.

That is not knocking him by the way. I posted on here pre-season for me, watching him develop, was the most exciting thing about the new season.

I suppose only time will tell, hopefully Haaland stays fit and I am proven very wrong but it appears a huge gamble.
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Them examples show how far ahead we are. Not one player they’re we’d take even with our injuries except Salah and he’s at the end of his career
 
Middedon said:
That’s a super interesting (and nicely presented) document. Thanks for sharing.

I remember last year Joško mentioned he was exhausted and got some media criticism with the implication, footballers are too rich and privileged to be tired. (https://www.bbc.com/sport/articles/cd18rjp428no.amp). There seems to be more sympathy toward it this year.
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Rodri got mocked when he talked about workload and a strike, but almost immediately picking up such a serious injury in a nothing challenge, has changed a few minds. Even more difficult to be critical now that he's collected a Ballon D'or on crutches.
 
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