SOS Save our Season

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AN ARTICLE BY DIMI

Are Injuries, Loyalty to some players and not others, an ageing group and Evolution in the wrong position going to cost us big this season?

I will break it down into a 3part article as there are too many ideas running through my mind. Probably a moan or a rant but I am going to mention things I have mentioned before because I was picturing these things in my head.

Let’s start with the injuries.

People on here have seen a bit of a different side to me since the end of  last season , since around April I suppose as I wasn’t too happy with the 433 and me saying how we needed to change it as I believed we were being found out and that we needed an evolution in the way we played but for the last 3 weeks I have been showing my frustration about something completely different and that’s The INJURIES. I have been banging on and on about it, you must be bored with it and yesterday just before the game I had a proper rant even swearing and ‘’saying F off from my club’’

I believe I had a right to show my frustration because as I have been saying I could picture the season from 2 years ago where things just went from bad to worse and I have been dreading it since he pre season.

For me we over trained, we travelled far and wide and over trained in conditions we shouldn’t have in the heat and humidity and we did too much in too less a time period while knowing very well that Jota, Kelleher and Ramsay all came with injuries. We then proceeded to let go of not 1, not 2 but 3 forwards and brought in a young striker and we had Bobby who had an injury hit season and has been in poor form for a long time and Mo who just wasn’t Mo in the 2^nd half of last season. ( I will leave this for another section.

I brought in a stat after game 2 of the PL where we in 3 games including the CS have had 23 or 26 injured players. Take yesterday into account that’ s probably 32-35??? now. More than 8-9 players out per game.

We are still missing Ibou,Matip, Ox,Thiago, Naby, Jones ,Ramsay, Jota, Kel and suspended Nunez.

We have had Ali out, Hendo and Gomez playing with injuries and Bobby and Tsimi also missing. So basically 2/3 of our team are either out or are carrying injuries and having to play or have been out.

How is this affecting our team?

1. Trent at right back is having a horrid season, absolutely horrid and we aren’t able to do anything about it because the RB cover (Ramsay) we brought in has been injured since pre season. We can’t play Millie there because we are short 4 players in the mid field and nor can we play Gomez because 2 CBs are injured and he must play CB.
2. 4 MF players injured. FOUR. We have 3 of those 4 who are constantly injured. Constantly and for long periods and another who just seems to have odd injuries. They have to be covered by a 36 and 33 year olds. A fantastic CDM that takes minimum 3 games to get going and a young 19 year old who’s just coming off a leg break from last season.  Where can we go wrong ? There’s also another 19 yr old who can be played in MF but we can’t because he’s the only cover as a forward ATM.
3. Add to this the completely out of form back 4 and we are suddenly in disarray.

I also showed a stat in here where there were 6 30 plus starters in the 1^st game. No one could believe that it were the same players that played v City and people thought it’s going to be a 1 off v Fulham. Well folks I’m sorry to break the bubble but age and injuries catch up on you.

• 3 teams have followed the same blue print. They have taken the game to us, played with fast young players, pressed us hard. You may think people used our own tactic to beat us. Yes they did. They pressed us high, harried, won the ball and countered fast and scored.
• Here’s the disturbing part to all of the things I have mentioned.

1. Our injury situation hasn’t got any better
2. We’ve all watched the way we’ve been playing isn’t it? Slow paced passing , movement off the ball slow, no pressing and counter pressing. No intensity in the way we play. Well that’s because we HAVE TO PLAY SAFE now or else we risk losing more players to injuries. Injuries bore injuries. The injured players are putting immense pressure on the other injury prone players.

So until we start getting most of those injured players back and get Nunez and Jota firing again and Fabinho, Virg, Robbo and Trent in form again we are in for a very bumpy ride. It’s going to be a long season because Arsenal and Tottenham are really up for it this season along with City and we’ve just given United the juice they’ve needed.