The games are coming thick and fast. We face Brighton on Saturday as well in the PL, so will be interesting to see how Slot plans out these two.
I’d expect the team to be rotated somewhat, with the priority being the PL match next weekend. Given we won the league cup last year, I’m less bothered about it, but always want the win.
Slot has done his pre-match presser. Confirmed that Jota, Elliot, and Chiesa remain out (and Ali ofcourse). Bradley back training so might be in the squad (sounds like he won’t start).
He will likely not rotate as much as some of us want. I’d expect to at least see Jarros, Quansah, Tsimikas, Gomez, Endo, Morton, and Gakpo to start. The rest will likely be based on fitness, and include planned substitutions.
Szobozlai didn’t start on Sunday, so he prob gets the knod. Maybe we get to see Danns?!
Dont know that we have that much option to. You would expect Gomez, Quansah, and Endo to play, but with Chiesa and Elliot out, the Jota/Nunez question currently solved by Jota’s injury, and Bradley being questionable, the team is likely going to look very similar to what we’ve seen even if we want to rotate.
I said to a friend of mine I don’t even mind if we are not playing as long as there is some club football to engage. Breaks are crap because it’s so sparse.
What’s the best way of following the match when it isn’t on telly? If there a radio stream that is available internationally? (you can tell that I am completely spoiled by our usual coverage in Germany.)
The way things are, I’m guessing it’s more likely to be Gomez unless we rest van Dijk. It becomes a question of which one of van Dijk and Alexander-Arnold is in more need of a rest.
This is really a shame (in my opinion) by the way, along with Chiesa’s continuing lack of fitness. This is exactly the kind of game when they would have been useful.
I mean I’d agree with that general sentiment but it doesn’t seem like Arne’s inclined to do that, especially from the sounds of his press conference.
At a stretch I’d say one of Morton or Nyoni might get an appearance, but there’s almost zero probability that they both start, I’m guessing. The only person he’s guaranteed will start is Endō.
Apparently for goalkeepers it’ll be up to the goalkeeping coach to decide. Think Kelleher would get the game but they’re concerned about playing him too much, so will probably be Jaroš.
The majority of that was out of necessity due to first team injuries. Far more often when we rotated for this compeition it was with players like Shaq and Origi. Slot has very few of that caliber of young players who got us through the later stages of this comp last season. With McConnell and Danns still injured you cannot see too much opportunity from the kids other than Morton and Trey. Maybe Mabaya at RB with Bradley a doubt?
Roberson/Tsimikas, Allister/Jones, Diaz/Gakpo can play and share minutes. Van Dijk, Konate, Trent, Grav, Szoboszlai, Salah have been playing nearly every three days for the past month, so I want to ensure they get proper rest. Also need to be cautious with Nunez, as he’s only senior CF now.
This seems to be limits of what rotation we could do with the players available, and it seems to me to be unlikely it will be this much of a change up. At least not in midfield. So that means one or two more players will likely be playing than we’d imagine (Dom? Mo?)
