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Definitely....it will be great to have a decent lefty back in the squad again.
Whereas last season we were the 3rd best team in the league. I wonder why we've regressed this season. It's almost as if our most important players have been injured for the majority of the season.
Almost, if it were true. Rashford and Bruno have been available all season, Casemiro only injured recently. Varane has been as absent this season as he was last. Every team has injuries.
It is funny that when we finished second and third under Ole and the captaincy of Harry the consensus was has that we were not the second and third best team respectively in the country but that we got lucky that the others had injuries or were simply out of form.....bizarre really
Two defenders returning won't transform a dysfunctional team that struggles to score goals
Everything starts from the back.
It'll help us move the ball through the lines. We will create more and hopefully score more.
Think it would massively help Mount's game too actually, taking the ball on the half turn from a decent pass into him.
Both of these defenders are very good at passing out from the back, much better than the ones we have now that only pass sideways
Brilliant point, feel like that's something we need to unlock.
This. Villa have scored 16 more goals than us and haven't had their first choice LCB and LB all season. Newcastle 14 more and play big Dan Burn at LB.
Our attacking players need to hit the target and by that I mean finding the spots in the goal where the GK is not currently standing.
Every team has had injuries this season, but no one, except for Newcastle, has had an injury list as extensive as ours. Most people gave Liverpool the benefit of the doubt when they had Van Dijk, Matip and Gomez injured for the majority of the 20/21 season, where they lost 6 home games on the bounce and barely scraped top 4. Whereas we have our defensive foundation decimated by injuries and it's a case of 'tough shit'.
Premier league results are not a good way to argue for him being superior. Martinez only played around 60% of the PL minutes last season and looking strictly at results (goals conceded, clean sheets, points), I think we actually did better without him. Seems similar this season where we have won 5 out of 7 games since his injury although it hasn’t looked pretty.
We beat Burnley, lost to Palace, beat Brentford, beat Sheffield United, lost to City, beat Fulham and beat Luton. So we beat all the promoted clubs + 2 mid table PL teams.
Exactly. You don't even have to look at stats to acknowledge we're a better team with him in it (when he's fully fit). His last league appearance pre-injury was vs Everton in April, which feels like one of the last games I actually enjoyed watching us play
if we can get the Martinez back that was MOTM vs Barcelona then it would be a huge step towards us being a functioning team again.Considering he went under the knife for the exact same injury, and was playing with pain killing injections, I'd say it played fulling into his form. He was playing at 40%
Didn’t Villa sign Pau Torres as their LCB? Or am I missing something. I think he got injured recently though.
I think you’re actually massively underestimating how important both Shaw and Martinez are in our build up play and also how important it is to have a secure back line as it dictates how many players you are confident throwing into the overloads.
Mings got injured first game, he was first choice.
Yeah, but I don’t think Torres was signed to sit on the bench. Not by Emery anyway.
The idea that a CB is going to transform us is far fetched. Our problem is creating and scoring goals, other sides aren't reliant a ball playing CB for this, only us apparently.
Neither were they sure to drop an England regular. Either way, they've been fine without their first choice defence all season.
Seemed quite clear they brought in Torres because he’s better on the ball than Mings, so let’s just agree to disagree then. No harm.
He watched training. I doubt the timeline has changed.
I hope you're right.
