Damn Shend, already? It’s only September.
Before it’s too late
Either Shend knows something we don’t or he’s a scout for Newcastle United, there are already rumors he has impressed in our training sessions and are already their number one target for January
But in all seriousness, I was expecting him to start or at least come off the bench for this game, either he has not been match fit since his signing a month ago or Monchi & Lope don’t rate him at all. Neither makes much sense as he didn’t feature for the NT in the league of nations and actually played a game for Monaco before coming over here, and unlike the situation with Dabbur this is a Monchi signing and Lope should have known we were going to sign Lopes and acknowledged or expressed his doubts if he didn’t rate him at all. This is very fishy and I hope Lopes can come off the bench at the very least for Qarabag tomorrow.
Lopetegui said Lopes would need time to familiarize himself with the team. There’s also the notion that he’s better in counterattacking systems, so maybe it’s also an adjustment period for him.