As I've said before & got endless shit for, I believe that the injury situation & the struggles the team has had are all part of a complete lack of planning (or management) by Pellegrini.
Regarding injuries, I've been repeatedly shouted down when mentioning that, for at least a year, maybe more, we should have been using kids regularly & getting them on the pitch, in order to supplement the squad. This would lessen the fatigue, physical & mental, of the first team squad & add much needed energy & enthusiasm to the whole setup.
We saw yeseterday, in a game where we were struggling like fuck & had gone to pieces, that Celina was able to come on, cope with it, & actually look better than some of the senior players, & produce the best cross of the game. He was able to 'do a job' for the first team. That doesn't mean he will become David Silva, he might not make it at all, but it does prove that he doesn't NEED to be David Silva, in order to come on the pitch & fill a position. He was able to do that & make a better contribution, than Silva actually did on the day. That is not unusual in football, it's bog standard.
He is one of about ten or more kids who could imo do the same, & many could have been doing it for at least 12 months. He is nowhere near the toughest, the fastest nor the best performer in the past few seasons, amongst those kids. Yet he was able to come on in the middle of that fucking farce, v a grafting team of adults & pass the ball perfectly.
Imagine how many hard slogging minutes where players pick up strains that contribute to injuries, could have been eliminated by introducing a few kids late in games ? Imagine if we then found one or two were actually quite good & could use them more ? Maybe even a matchwinner or two if we're lucky ? Pellegrini has been lazy, unadventurous & incompetent in this respect & it has made our club less efficient than it should be.
Now that's gone & we find ourselves in this fucking mess he has created, hows about he accepts we are struggling (especially with Silva injured again) & decides to actually MANAGE the fucking team, to get some results ?
How about he puts out a balanced FIT team, with a game plan & a defensive shape in order to COMPETE in games, both tactically & energetically, insted of believing we are Real fucking Madrid with Zidane, & can just roll ever **** over ? Do what normal managers do, look at the oppo, put out a solid, well drilled side designed to hurt them AND TO STOP THEM, & see if Aguero etc win it for us ?
Or does he just think that Lecester, Stoke etc have better players than us & therefore can outplay us on any given day ?