Still relevant though, as that leaves a minimum 20-30 mins (barring any injuries to the few remaining mids) without any of Mainoo, Casemiro or Eriksen. So his absence then creates the issue, who do we turn to when those have to be subbed? And does it mean we have to have both aging CM's on at the same time for an hour or more, which is far from ideal in terms of being outrun in midfield.
His absence will be felt more than it would have been had we still had the likes of Ugarte, Collyer or Amad to use instead. Having to rely on Casemiro and Eriksen, and then just unused academy kids, means it becomes a comparatively bigger loss on top of the others we've lost at the same time. Because he might only be a mixture of Plan A and B, rather than a nailed on Plan A. But we're now down to midfield plans much farther down the alphabet!
