Says the topic will automatically close in 7 days… ?
Or is it 7 days after the match?
haha good catch; i selected the wrong dropdown
Bade’s overload issue shows that we desperately needed to sign or loan in a CB in the January window. It was a must… and the management neglected it.
That is if we want to seriously compete in EL and not only play to stay above the safe zone in La Liga but also challenge for the 7th place or so.
Sampaoli is being forced to use DM’s as CB’s like in the case of Fernando and Gudelj. Sure they are doing a great job there but what about the midfield? We are left with Jordan who is not a pure DM so technically we were playing without a DM against PSV.
We have Gueye for La Liga but then again, Marcao and Rekik are too injury prone to play regularly throughout the season and Nianzou has form swings. The only solid pure CB that we have is Bade, and he is now being overloaded having to play every 3-4 days.
With the gained momentum, it would be a shame not to seriously compete in EL too. We are almost through to the next round and with a bit of luck in the draw, we can go quite far.
I’ll never be able to understand why we didn’t get another CB as a cover, never ever. Could’ve been just a loan without an option, screw it… but to leave the team so thin at the defensive side is plain stupid.
Absolutely. At one point last night we had Gudelj and Fernando playing centre back and PSV were all over us as we didn’t have a midfield. Once Fernando had moved into midfield we soon took control.
If we’d had defensive cover in the first place that wouldn’t be necessary to play midfielders in defence. Another centre back should have been signed in January. Let’s hope Bade is okay as otherwise we’ll be relying on Gudelj/Fernando/Rekik which isn’t ideal if we want to challenge for European places in the league and go far in the Europa.
Bade out for 3-4 weeks…
I feel like maybe Lopetegui was just so sure about Rekik as backup to Marcão that he thought he had a solid three CBs, didn’t need a fourth. And in some past seasons, he would have been right to only really need 3. But clearly that risk didn’t pan out…
More realistically, negotiations probably fell through on whomever was supposed to be the 4th and they ran out of time…
I meant for the January window… the summer one was chaotic and not planned well. We could’ve done much better in January in that regard, but oh well…
What even happened to Bade?
Oh. Dear. God.
Looked like a hammy or quad pull
if it is 3-4 probably more quad than hammy. those are harder to heal.
No end in sight to the injury problems plus suspensions and we’ve had to rely on young Nianzou perhaps too much. This is going to be a tough game with a makeshift defence. Rakitic has a virus but has travelled.
Telles as a LCB… interesting.
Some fresh legs with Mir, Suso and Gueye starting - hopefully Mir won’t disappoint.
We need to win this one, VAMOS!
That defence… 
Says a lot about the strength of squad when we have to draft in Lulo and Manu Bueno at this point.
Is Sampoli fucking kidding with Mir? Always the worst to have on the pitch, all season. Don’t even get how he’s considered ‘professional’. Just like that winger brought in years ago , I think Carole was his name.
Hope I regret saying this later and he shines. Doubtful.