Pre-season 2021/22

[Brown Nose]

Some observations.

1. The squad have moved into a 5 star £600 per person per night hotel in Surrey for the week. Seems a bit odd when we've just paid £100m for a training facility with 30+ bedrooms and better training facilities than this?

2. What the actual feck is Tielemans doing on the pitch already? He finally stopped playing on 2nd July. Surely, he should have been made to have at least one more week off after 70+ matches in the last year?

3. Notable how many of those not included in the squad on Saturday were training - Perez, Mendy, Albrighton, Barnes, etc. Also, several U23s still with the squad, including Nelson who looks like he's grown another foot since I last saw him - he's enormous for just 17.

4. It's not on the video but Evans and Justin are there training separately to the rest. Both recovering from injuries obviously. However, it was very clear that Justin is pretty active and moving freely without any knee support. This is rather encouraging. Castagne there and looks fine but not training fully.

5. Only absentees I could make out were Praet (?), Schmeichel and Ward.

 

[pork pie fox]

Some observations.

1. The squad have moved into a 5 star £600 per person per night hotel in Surrey for the week. Seems a bit odd when we've just paid £100m for a training facility with 30+ bedrooms and better training facilities than this?

2. What the actual feck is Tielemans doing on the pitch already? He finally stopped playing on 2nd July. Surely, he should have been made to have at least one more week off after 70+ matches in the last year?

3. Notable how many of those not included in the squad on Saturday were training - Perez, Mendy, Albrighton, Barnes, etc. Also, several U23s still with the squad, including Nelson who looks like he's grown another foot since I last saw him - he's enormous for just 17.

4. It's not on the video but Evans and Justin are there training separately to the rest. Both recovering from injuries obviously. However, it was very clear that Justin is pretty active and moving freely without any knee support. This is rather encouraging. Castagne there and looks fine but not training fully.

5. Only absentees I could make out were Praet (?), Schmeichel and Ward.

Youri looks like he’s lost a bit of timber, to me.

 

[fitz]

2. What the actual feck is Tielemans doing on the pitch already? He finally stopped playing on 2nd July. Surely, he should have been made to have at least one more week off after 70+ matches in the last year?

If he doesn't leave the pitch he can't have a medical elsewhere. I'd keep him on the pitch until the window SLAMS shut. A shrew move.

 

[bocadillo]

Nelson looks like he's grown another foot since I last saw him

 

[Blue Maniac]

jesus, Bob, warn us before you drop a video of that kid-touching old ****

 

[Brown Nose]

Some thoughts on where we're at.

Injury/absence wise, we're yet to see any sight of Schmeichel, Ward, Justin, Castagne, Evans, Mendy and Praet. So I can't see any of these other than Schmeichel starting the PL season.

We've been mostly playing a back four so I expect that to be the formation we use most of the time. Ricardo, Fofana, Soyuncu and Bertrand look the likely starters. However, I would say that Thomas looks like he's bulked up a bit and it will be a tight call between the two left backs.

Ndidi and Tielemans pick themselves. The interesting call is whether to play Soumare or Maddison as the third one in the centre. I guess Maddison will get the nod for the Wolves game as we're at home and need to be creative.

The other option would be to play Soumare in a three in midfied and Maddison as a 10 behind two strikers. It might be the sensible option as I don't expect Barnes to be ready. Of the strikers, Vardy will play despite him looking the weakest of them so far. I'd expect Iheanacho to start alongside too.

So I expect something like:

Schmeichel
Ricardo Fofana Soyuncu Bertrand
Soumare Ndidi Tielemans
Maddison
Vardy Iheanacho

Having Barnes and Daka on the bench gives us options to add attacking threat. Then you have Ward, Dewsbury-Hall, Albrighton, Thomas as solid options.

The two obvious issues are a vulnerability in central defence and we're one creative player short. With the absentees and the not good enoughs, we're still not strong enough in my opinion. We have loads of players, but too many aren't really going to be adding competition to the starting line up.

Benkovic, Amartey, Mendy, Choudhury, Praet, Perez, Ghezzal, all look unlikely to make an effective contribution. Shifting some of these is the priority.

I reckon we'll still add a couple of loans into the squad over the next month. I still think Countinho could well be one of them and someone like Kabak could be the other.

 

[sparky79]

Need another centre back in. Id say we will only get a right winger if all lf Ghezzal, Mendy or Choudhury andPraet go which seems unlikely at this stage.

 

[Volpone]

Praet has been in videos and photos of training sessions several times already.

 

[Brown Nose]

Praet has been in videos and photos of training sessions several times already.

He was in Friday's video. He hasn't been in any before that.

 

[Brown Nose]