Injuries 2024/25 | Dias ruled out for a month

[Damocles]

Have our players turned in to soft arses who wont play with even a broken toe nail?, Have they stopped being willing to go above and beyond for Pep or are we actually in the middle of a genuine freak injury crisis putting mass players out for weeks on end?,

Out of our currently 15 fit first team players, a good 5 of them are playing injured if that answers the question

 

[Xhavenjoe]

Have our players turned in to soft arses who wont play with even a broken toe nail?

I'm sure there a thread somewhere devoted to toenails and pedicures

 

[Vic]

Are the media still saying we have a large squad with two world class players for every position?

 

[ninjamonkey]

Just last night I was saying elsewhere on the forum that this cycle of injuries will continue until we add numbers to the squad. Every defender is coming back and is immediately thrown straight in and expected to go full tilt until they break again because there's no alternative. It isn't a coincidence that they all keep getting injured a few weeks after returning. it's nothing to do with luck either, this is a direct consequence of the piss poor, negligent decision to go into a season with 6 defenders. It's all of our own doing.

Seems pep is now saying the exact same thing as me with his latest comments on Dias. That is surely an acceptance that his preference for a stupidly small squad was a major fuck up on his part and that they now need to add in January. Small silver lining i suppose, just a shame it has took a wasted season and our shot at extending our history making title streak for him to realise it.

 

[cheekybids]

Seems pep is now saying the exact same thing as me with his latest comments on Dias. That is surely an acceptance that his preference for a stupidly small squad was a major fuck up on his part and that they now need to add in January. Small silver lining i suppose, just a shame it has took a wasted season and our shot at extending our history making title streak for him to realise it.

You can’t say that without criticising the small squad was at fault last year & all the other seasons. The small squad has enabled us too keep a happy, rotated team & I was telling a Chelsea fan last season their squad is too big, giving him stories of Joe Royle & 50 pros spread over 2 changing rooms.

The irony is we’ve got 1 striker, that was the area we probably gambled & yet he’s played every game.
City have managed small squads, keeping them fit & rotating the players finding solutions. Never before have we lost so many players all at the same time making rotation impossible. Hindsight is a wonderful thing & we’ll learn from it but not forgetting how well smaller squads have served us.

 

[Tico Warrior]

You can’t say that without criticising the small squad was at fault last year & all the other seasons. The small squad has enabled us too keep a happy, rotated team & I was telling a Chelsea fan last season their squad is too big, giving him stories of Joe Royle & 50 pros spread over 2 changing rooms.

The irony is we’ve got 1 striker, that was the area we probably gambled & yet he’s played every game.
City have managed small squads, keeping them fit & rotating the players finding solutions. Never before have we lost so many players all at the same time making rotation impossible. Hindsight is a wonderful thing & we’ll learn from it but not forgetting how well smaller squads have served us.

I would argue the increase in games has had an accumulation effect on players though, so if there was a break in the last few years things wouldn't be so bad. Since covid and the winter world cup, we've had the nation's league replace friendlies and we've got expanded champions league and now a club world cup at the end of the season making it worse.

We've easily got the smallest squad out of our rivals in the league, and went into an extended season with one aging rb, no natural lb, one dm who has been complaining about the number of games he's playing, and one striker. Going forward the club and Pep are going to have to change things, else even if we sign some new players we are going to be in the same situation next year. We can't sign a new rb to replace Walker and have them play in 70 + games a season and expect them not to get injured.

We can't sign players like Doku who have had injury issues before with such a small squad. We can't carry people like McAtee who the manager doesn't deem good enough to play more than 2 minutes in the league. We can't refuse to use any academy players other than Lewis, even if it just to round out the squad, or not use a lot of subs when we can see the team are out on their feet. Ake, stones, walker, gundo and bernardo are not going to be fitter next year after this season, and we have no rest with the club world cup. Something has got to give.

 

[Blue Theatre]

I suppose it's a good question which we want:
(a) a small squad of world beaters
(b) a larger squad of slightly less good players?

(a) has served us incredibly well for the past 4 seasons ... but once you pick up a few injuries, it means the rest of the squad have to play more / no rotation / play through njuries ... and it all has the danger of spiralling & falls apart.

 

[cheekybids]

I would argue the increase in games has had an accumulation effect on players though, so if there was a break in the last few years things wouldn't be so bad. Since covid and the winter world cup, we've had the nation's league replace friendlies and we've got expanded champions league and now a club world cup at the end of the season making it worse.

We've easily got the smallest squad out of our rivals in the league, and went into an extended season with one aging rb, no natural lb, one dm who has been complaining about the number of games he's playing, and one striker. Going forward the club and Pep are going to have to change things, else even if we sign some new players we are going to be in the same situation next year. We can't sign a new rb to replace Walker and have them play in 70 + games a season and expect them not to get injured.

We can't sign players like Doku who have had injury issues before with such a small squad. We can't carry people like McAtee who the manager doesn't deem good enough to play more than 2 minutes in the league. We can't refuse to use any academy players other than Lewis, even if it just to round out the squad, or not use a lot of subs when we can see the team are out on their feet. Ake, stones, walker, gundo and bernardo are not going to be fitter next year after this season, and we have no rest with the club world cup. Something has got to give.

The increase in games can be blamed at the end of the season not in November. I thought we’d have a bad start by resting the squad but we were top of the league & successfully rested the Spanish & English players.

RB You say 1 ageing isn’t true. We had Lewis plus 1 ageing & cover from Stones & Akanji.

LB you say we got no natural LB isn’t true. We have Gvardiol with cover from Ake & Lewis.

DM you say we have 1 but we rested Rodri for the first month playing Kovacic with cover from Stones & Akanji.

I believe Mcatee would have played more if the big lads at the back & centre would have been fit. I really like Mcatee & I believe Pep does but we’re already light weight although I find Doku frustrating & Savio disappointing.

I do agree we need to look because it’s not worked but it’s not due to lack of cover it’s that all our players plus their cover has all been injured at the same time.

I honestly believe if maybe Akanji & Dias had of stayed fit we’d have been fine but 13 players all at the same time this season but we’d have needed to make changes for next year for certain with no summer break.

 

[Tico Warrior]

The increase in games can be blamed at the end of the season not in November. I thought we’d have a bad start by resting the squad but we were top of the league & successfully rested the Spanish & English players.

RB You say 1 ageing isn’t true. We had Lewis plus 1 ageing & cover from Stones & Akanji.

LB you say we got no natural LB isn’t true. We have Gvardiol with cover from Ake & Lewis.

DM you say we have 1 but we rested Rodri for the first month playing Kovacic with cover from Stones & Akanji.

I believe Mcatee would have played more if the big lads at the back & centre would have been fit. I really like Mcatee & I believe Pep does but we’re already light weight although I find Doku frustrating & Savio disappointing.

I do agree we need to look because it’s not worked but it’s not due to lack of cover it’s that all our players plus their cover has all been injured at the same time.

I honestly believe if maybe Akanji & Dias had of stayed fit we’d have been fine but 13 players all at the same time this season but we’d have needed to make changes for next year for certain with no summer break.

I mean an increase in games as in the nation's league replacing friendlies and an expanded euros, with a condensed time to play games as the winter world cup and covid cut rest periods. I think other clubs have had injury issues as well, but have bigger squads and will use youngsters which we refuse to do.

Lewis isn't a rb, gvardivol isn't a lb and kovacic isn't a dm. They can be played there, but those aren't there natural positions. When Rice is injured for Arsenal they can play actual dms and don't have to rely on sticking cbs or cms in. If Alex Arnold is injured for Liverpool they can play Bradley, they don't have to stick a cb in. Ake and Stones are made of China and can't be relied upon to be cbs, never mind offering depth at lb, rb and dm. We need at least 8 defenders next season.

Pep doesn't rate McAtee at all, as when we were doing well and played Ipswich at home he got 1 minute. Didn't start against Prague and Bratislava when we have 50x their budget. Playing him so little does nothing: doesn't improve him, increase transfer value or help rest our first teamers.

 

[cheekybids]

I mean an increase in games as in the nation's league replacing friendlies and an expanded euros, with a condensed time to play games as the winter world cup and covid cut rest periods. I think other clubs have had injury issues as well, but have bigger squads and will use youngsters which we refuse to do.

Lewis isn't a rb, gvardivol isn't a lb and kovacic isn't a dm. They can be played there, but those aren't there natural positions. When Rice is injured for Arsenal they can play actual dms and don't have to rely on sticking cbs or cms in. If Alex Arnold is injured for Liverpool they can play Bradley, they don't have to stick a cb in. Ake and Stones are made of China and can't be relied upon to be cbs, never mind offering depth at lb, rb and dm. We need at least 8 defenders next season.

Pep doesn't rate McAtee at all, as when we were doing well and played Ipswich at home he got 1 minute. Didn't start against Prague and Bratislava when we have 50x their budget. Playing him so little does nothing: doesn't improve him, increase transfer value or help rest our first teamers.

Pep plays footballers in positions that aren’t often their positions because he sees the game differently. All his career he’s played midfielders as full backs so why wouldn’t he see Lewis as a RB. Gvardiol was bought as a left back as he had 4 centre half’s.

We were top of the league & the only unbeaten team in Europe with Lewis RB, Gvardiol LB & Kovacic as DM. We started dropping points once we lost all 4 centre half’s, the position we arguably had the most cover.

Pep only gave Mcatee 1 min v Ipswich because he likes a 3 goal lead before bringing on the replacements. We got the 3rd in the 88th minute. If he didn’t like him he’d have fucked him off.

I can’t argue that it’s not gone wrong but what I’m saying is Pep has managed the squad no differently to any other year we’ve been successful.