I wonder how much of this Timber at LB was the original plan for Timber or Mikel reacting to Zinchenko’s injury.
His first game was at RB iirc so obviously Mikel isn’t opposed to playing him there. Curious because if we’ve pivoted to having Timber at LB long term that means we now need another RB as backup to White (so we are not reliant on Tomiyasu’s fitness).
That first game at RB makes me think that this was not the original plan and the original plan was Kiwior, but then Timber looked better there. I think we’re fine on RBs though — we’ve got Tomi and Timber and we can just play Tierney / Kiwior if both Zinny and Tomi are out and White needs a break
Sociedad want KT on loan
still think we shouldn’t let him go, he’s our best LB that’s actually a left back and gives us significant choices on tactical flexibility
Zinchenko has a pretty poor injury record, it would be a dumb move to let KT go (unless it was for a great offer). Timber played well at LB at the weekend, so we’ve got more cover but it would be really nice to actually have some depth!
The way I see it, we have 9 defenders besides Tavares and Cedric — exactly the right number. Zinny and Tierney on the left, Gabriel and Kiwior on the LCB, Saliba and Holding on the RCB, White and Timber on the RB, and Tomiyasu wherever the fucking hell we need him. Obviously probably not actually gonna work out that way — I reckon Holding’s behind Timber and Tomiyasu if everyone’s fit and saliba’s the only injury; but given a 25 man squad, I think 9 is exactly what we want for the 4 spots; then 7 for midfield and 7 in the front plus 2 goalkeepers makes 25 (and a youth keeper to be third choice)
That, and he’s one of the best subs off the bench for us. Like the old Holding 5-2-3 but with the same team structure. Defensively he’s the best LB we’ve got and certainly one of the best defensive players — if he could invert better he’d be the best LB in the world, not just the team. And I think he’s been getting better at it, even though it really doesn’t play to his strengths.
Interestingly, as BillyCarpenter pointed out on Twitter, Vieira fingered a 3-4-3 Diamond when he and ESR came on. Probably an evolution of when we tried to throw people forwards on the Man U game we lost last season. Tierney and White seem uniquely qualified on our squad to do such a thing, to be honest; both have played significant minutes at their side’s CB, while also being good enough as traditional fullbacks to help nullify the threats from the wings and even bring things forwards as an extra threat.
Nkunku’s out for a good while apparently. Wonder if Chelsea could be tempted into buying Balogun XD
lemmy.world is too unstable, have to get another username on another instance
Now that Raya is done, definitely interesting how it plays out and what Mikel has up his sleeves, I’m quite worry about if it’ll create tension which we do not need.
