Leeds United Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours 2020/2021

event

adaminho wrote: »

What positions are you looking at? We need a LB but apart from that and a Hernandez replacement I'd be happy enough going into next season with the same squad.

Oh just in general, in case we saw a bargain :pac:

Agree with above. Would also like another midfielder as Forshaw is done and you can see that we will need to rest Klich at times.

adaminho

event wrote: »

Oh just in general, in case we saw a bargain :pac:

Agree with above. Would also like another midfielder as Forshaw is done and you can see that we will need to rest Klich at times.

I'd also take a punt on Kieran Westwood as a back-up on a free to replace Kiko!

Seathrun66

newhouse87 wrote: »

I have said a few times about the work rate of the team, the heart and desire can never be in question, just because we win doesn't mean all 11 players played great, i dont see any harm in some criticism, cant all be rosy in the garden every week. It has been pointed out in the commentary numerous times the last few weeks that ayling has ben easily passed and has played some questionable balls around the back. Going forward i certainly appreciate him, he just gives me worry when playing the balls round the back. Again i couldnt be happier where we are.

Constructive criticism of the team and players is necessary. Rampant negativity ain't welcome.

Seathrun66

event wrote: »

Arsenal Sunday lads, how are we feeling?

I really cant call this one at all, no idea how it'll go

Same here. Though I'd be more confident if Partey and Tierney don't return. A draw will do but we're in much better form than Arsenal and an early goal would really unsettle them.

NuckChorris1

Was going to mention that Watkins probably would be a bench warmer at Leeds given Bielsa's love of Bamford and agree he wouldn't be a 10 like Rodrigo. Could see Bamford drop deeper if both played, but given Bamford's season we don't need anything like that.

From the Championship I'd take Ismaila Sarr from Watford if Costa was moved on, and maybe Jefferson Lerma for CM. I like Rico Henry as a LB, but I think we can aim higher than him now given LB should be our priority position next summer.

adaminho

NuckChorris1 wrote: »

Was going to mention that Watkins probably would be a bench warmer at Leeds given Bielsa's love of Bamford and agree he wouldn't be a 10 like Rodrigo. Could see Bamford drop deeper if both played, but given Bamford's season we don't need anything like that.

From the Championship I'd take Ismaila Sarr from Watford if Costa was moved on, and maybe Jefferson Lerma for CM. I like Rico Henry as a LB, but I think we can aim higher than him now given LB should be our priority position next summer.

A good player but after Raphina's first season RW is the last place I'd be looking to replace! Maybe as a replacement if he left alright. I do think we need cover at GK and a Midfielder that can cover for Klich/Dallas as upgrades on top as a left back.

Seathrun66

How do people see the rest of the season going? I think we're in for a strong run-in and though we'll tire I expect that to be less so than the opposition above us. No cup or European games and I foresee us taking some more scalps.

Final tally - 57/58 points.

newhouse87

Seathrun66 wrote: »

Constructive criticism of the team and players is necessary. Rampant negativity ain't welcome.

Rampant negativity is not accurate, most of my posts have positives and negatives.

adaminho

Seathrun66 wrote: »

How do people see the rest of the season going? I think we're in for a strong run-in and though we'll tire I expect that to be less so than the opposition above us. No cup or European games and I foresee us taking some more scalps.

Final tally - 57/58 points.

If we hit 50pts I'll be happy, only done by 11 promoted teams in premiership history! I think we're well safe but I can seeing us losing games we should win and winning games we should lose!

Seathrun66

newhouse87 wrote: »

Rampant negativity is not accurate, most of my posts have positives and negatives.

Your most recent ones yes, after admonishment. But hey, let's just support them to a top-half finish. Your prediction for the final points total?

Seathrun66

adaminho wrote: »

If we hit 50pts I'll be happy, only done by 11 promoted teams in premiership history! I think we're well safe but I can seeing us losing games we should win and winning games we should lose!

What we've done thus far. If we continue getting an average of 1.45 points per game we're on course for 55 points. I think we'll nick a few more.

Hijpo

newhouse87 wrote: »

?? I meant i was worried about Rodrigo not settling pre xmas.

Ah I never cleared the quote, sorry.

You see in this thread, people commenting on who they would worry about from corners or getting time on the ball on the opposing teams. I was wondering if anyone had seen similar comments about leeds players in other threads.

newhouse87

Seathrun66 wrote: »

Your most recent ones yes, after admonishment. But hey, let's just support them to a top-half finish. Your prediction for the final points total?

Ah we need a bit of balance too, i will be the negative one here ha.TBH id be happy wit finishing on 54 points from here. I just want them to stay up so can get over for a few games next season.

Seathrun66

newhouse87 wrote: »

Ah we need a bit of balance too, i will be the negative one here ha.TBH id be happy wit finishing on 54 points from here. I just want them to stay up so can get over for a few games next season.

Same here. I think we'll all be on the same flight, but not til Jan/Feb 2022.

My turn for negativity!

Jimmy Two Times

Hijpo wrote: »

You see in this thread, people commenting on who they would worry about from corners or getting time on the ball on the opposing teams. I was wondering if anyone had seen similar comments about leeds players in other threads.

Never look, sorry

It's all about our team for me.

Just on Harrison,I think recently he has stopped with the hopeful crosses when Pat's on his own the middle marked by 3 defenders and has looked to be more subtle. Far fewer crosses being blocked too. He was so frustrating in the first season and for a lot of the second.

Doesn't have the trickery or the ball skills to take on and beat a defender from a standing start but his pillow feet are the best I've seen in an age.

The control and cross for Rodrigo's goal against Newcastle was outrageous.

newhouse87

Jimmy Two Times wrote: »

Never look, sorry

It's all about our team for me.

Just on Harrison,I think recently he has stopped with the hopeful crosses when Pat's on his own the middle marked by 3 defenders and has looked to be more subtle. Far fewer crosses being blocked too. He was so frustrating in the first season and for a lot of the second.

Doesn't have the trickery or the ball skills to take on and beat a defender from a standing start but his pillow feet are the best I've seen in an age.

The control and cross for Rodrigo's goal against Newcastle was outrageous.

essentially what i think about Harrison aswell, can mix the brilliant with the woeful with regards to hitting the first defender, sometimes he does all the hard work then mis-hits the cross, again of late has been better though.

event

newhouse87 wrote: »

Ah we need a bit of balance too, i will be the negative one here ha.TBH id be happy wit finishing on 54 points from here. I just want them to stay up so can get over for a few games next season.

I was very nervous earlier on in the year. But we are certs to stay up now

Imagine we lose every game between now and the end of the year.
We will end on 32 points.
Fulham are 17 points behind us. So need 17 points in their last 16 games

This year Fulham have gotten 0.68 points per game.
They would need to get 1.06 points per game in their last 16 games to catch us. That just doesnt happen.
Its even harder for WBA and SU to do it as they are further behind us and with a game less to do it

And thats if we lose every single game between now and the end of the season :pac:

newhouse87

event wrote: »

I was very nervous earlier on in the year. But we are certs to stay up now

Imagine we lose every game between now and the end of the year.
We will end on 32 points.
Fulham are 17 points behind us. So need 17 points in their last 16 games

This year Fulham have gotten 0.68 points per game.
They would need to get 1.06 points per game in their last 16 games to catch us. That just doesnt happen.
Its even harder for WBA and SU to do it as they are further behind us and with a game less to do it

And thats if we lose every single game between now and the end of the season :pac:

even i wouldnt suggest that ha.

PabloAndRoy

We are such a pessimistic bunch. Earlier in the season, we were all "happy if we finish 17th". Now we are in top half of the table with the season more than half over and we are "Do you think we will we stay up?"

Its been a great season. Just a pity we can't get to see games. Next year definitely probably we will see Leeds in the flesh in the PL.

Seathrun66

PabloAndRoy wrote: »

We are such a pessimistic bunch. Earlier in the season, we were all "happy if we finish 17th". Now we are in top half of the table with the season more than half over and we are "Do you think we will we stay up?"

Its been a great season. Just a pity we can't get to see games. Next year definitely probably we will see Leeds in the flesh in the PL.

Not all. I honestly thought we'd be higher than we are given the quality coming up and the buys in. And I expected us to be above Villa and West Ham.

Some better finishing, less woodwork (14 times) and decisions going our way would have given us a few more points though I concede we also got points whilst playing badly (Burnley, second Newcastle game).

However, though I'm still looking upwards, I can't now see us getting much higher unless a couple of teams have a big drop in form. Still think we'll finish 9th/10th.

PabloAndRoy

Seathrun66 wrote: »

Not all. I honestly thought we'd be higher than we are given the quality coming up and the buys in. And I expected us to be above Villa and West Ham.

Some better finishing, less woodwork (14 times) and decisions going our way would have given us a few more points though I concede we also got points whilst playing badly (Burnley, second Newcastle game).

However, though I'm still looking upwards, I can't now see us getting much higher unless a couple of teams have a big drop in form. Still think we'll finish 9th/10th.

I think I can safely say, you were on your own there. I think the vast majority of us are surprised how well some of these players have adapted (Cooper and Alioski for me mainly, and Harrison to a lesser degree).

You are a "glass almost full" man when it comes to Leeds methinks.

Seathrun66

PabloAndRoy wrote: »

I think I can safely say, you were on your own there. I think the vast majority of us are surprised how well some of these players have adapted (Cooper and Alioski for me mainly, and Harrison to a lesser degree).

You are a "glass almost full" man when it comes to Leeds methinks.

The Guardian tipped us for 10th (very accurate thus far) and some others a little higher or lower but most in that mid-table area. We won the Championship by ten points and had the third highest Summer net spend of any European teams.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2020/sep/04/premier-league-2020-21-preview-no-9-leeds-united

I never countenanced us going down and thought we'd be higher by now. It's not that we're on a par with the top teams, more that there's a lot of dross in the Premier League. And we're not dross.



.

Carcharodon

Seathrun66 wrote: »

The Guardian tipped us for 10th (very accurate thus far) and some others a little higher or lower but most in that mid-table area. We won the Championship by ten points and had the third highest Summer net spend of any European teams.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2020/sep/04/premier-league-2020-21-preview-no-9-leeds-united

I never countenanced us going down and thought we'd be higher by now. It's not that we're on a par with the top teams, more that there's a lot of dross in the Premier League. And we're not dross.



.

Well if the Guardian said it then it must be fact..lol

Joking aside, lower end of mid table was probably a lot of people’s thinking, we added some quality but also there were still a lot of question marks on some our squad.
Luckily Bamford has stepped up BIG time, he has really gone beyond people’s expectations, plus Meslier has done well, Harrison etc

I did always believe as you say, there is some dross in the league which we are not but the premiership is a fine line, a run of bad results and you get sucked in, luckily we have been consistently inconsistent

Ceist_Beag

Carcharodon wrote: »

Well if the Guardian said it then it must be fact..lol

Joking aside, lower end of mid table was probably a lot of people’s thinking, we added some quality but also there were still a lot of question marks on some our squad.
Luckily Bamford has stepped up BIG time, he has really gone beyond people’s expectations, plus Meslier has done well, Harrison etc

I did always believe as you say, there is some dross in the league which we are not but the premiership is a fine line, a run of bad results and you get sucked in, luckily we have been consistently inconsistent

Yes, I think Bamford is primarily the reason why we are ahead of where most of us felt we would be this season. As I said previously, once we beat Newcastle last month I was comfortable we would not need to worry about relegation this season. It stopped the run of bad results and put us a very decent margin ahead of the relegation places. That result is when I started looking up the table, not down. As things stand it's hard not to think we can possibly go further up the table as there are a number of players yet to return who can add to our options. Right now I think a top half is achievable and that would be a terrific result for our first season.

event

And Ill be worried about next year too. We've seen too many teams go up, surprise everyone and finish high and then drop like a stone the following year. I think we'll be ok then too but be something to watch

PabloAndRoy

event wrote: »

And Ill be worried about next year too. We've seen too many teams go up, surprise everyone and finish high and then drop like a stone the following year. I think we'll be ok then too but be something to watch

Just look at Wolves. OK, they have lost Jiminez who gets a lot of goals, but the last couple of years they have looked so solid. This year, they are struggling. I think they are going to be safe for sure, but one injury can throw one of these types of teams into a slump. If we were to lose say Dallas and Phillips on a long term injury, we could find ourselves in a similar slump, struggling to find wins.

I think the key to next year is two-fold. 1. Orta fills our potential injury weak links with a couple of Raphinha level players and 2. Bielsa stays!

adaminho

PabloAndRoy wrote: »

Just look at Wolves. OK, they have lost Jiminez who gets a lot of goals, but the last couple of years they have looked so solid. This year, they are struggling. I think they are going to be safe for sure, but one injury can throw one of these types of teams into a slump. If we were to lose say Dallas and Phillips on a long term injury, we could find ourselves in a similar slump, struggling to find wins.

I think the key to next year is two-fold. 1. Orta fills our potential injury weak links with a couple of Raphinha level players and 2. Bielsa stays!

A lot depends who comes up also. I could see us dropping back next year but still being safe. If you looked at last seasons table you would have said West Ham,Newcastle and Villa would be where we should be. If Brentford and Norwich and maybe Swansea came up would we be better than them?

Seathrun66

Carcharodon wrote: »

Well if the Guardian said it then it must be fact..lol

Joking aside, lower end of mid table was probably a lot of people’s thinking, we added some quality but also there were still a lot of question marks on some our squad.
Luckily Bamford has stepped up BIG time, he has really gone beyond people’s expectations, plus Meslier has done well, Harrison etc

I did always believe as you say, there is some dross in the league which we are not but the premiership is a fine line, a run of bad results and you get sucked in, luckily we have been consistently inconsistent

Not going by the tipsters and bookies (9th favourite for the title at start of season going by Oddschecker). I think you'd have to be pretty pessimistic to have predicted us for the drop this season, or anywhere near. We were already far superior to the two teams coming up with us and we added more than £100m worth of talent without selling anyone off, in net terms more than anyone in Europe other than Chelsea and Man City.

To believe we were going to finish in the bottom five or six displays a lack of faith in Bielsa, Orta, Kinnear, the team and the newcomers. Or maybe grounded realism given our history. anyway it has all worked out and I can't see anything but progress for the next few years. This is not Sheffield United, Burnley, Newcastle, etc.

Seathrun66

Carcharodon wrote: »

Well if the Guardian said it then it must be fact..lol

Joking aside, lower end of mid table was probably a lot of people’s thinking, we added some quality but also there were still a lot of question marks on some our squad.
Luckily Bamford has stepped up BIG time, he has really gone beyond people’s expectations, plus Meslier has done well, Harrison etc

I did always believe as you say, there is some dross in the league which we are not but the premiership is a fine line, a run of bad results and you get sucked in, luckily we have been consistently inconsistent

To be fair to them they're pretty accurate so far in their tips, most teams are at the predicted position or close. Though Sheffield United slightly below the predicted 11th. And we are tenth after all.

Seathrun66

adaminho wrote: »

A lot depends who comes up also. I could see us dropping back next year but still being safe. If you looked at last seasons table you would have said West Ham,Newcastle and Villa would be where we should be. If Brentford and Norwich and maybe Swansea came up would we be better than them?

Yes, infinitely so. And with an extra year of PL money plus the £63m from SF69ers to invest on players. Maybe I'm too cocksure but I foresee no issues for the next 3/4 seasons.

event

Piece in the Athletic about Berardi.

Have to say, hats off to the club for this. We easily could have cut him loose

The last memory anyone has of Gaetano Berardi in Leeds United colours is of him limping around on crutches at Derby County. The Championship title was in the bag and Berardi milked the achievement with the rest of Leeds’ players, forcing his knee injury to wait in line.

He would have known by then that the injury was serious because the feeling of an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) giving way can be unmistakable. For most of the game, the 32-year-old sat by Derby’s tunnel with an ice pack on his right leg. Andrea Radrizzani was with him and the two chatted intermittently; small talk in advance of a much bigger conversation.

There were no histrionics from Berardi and, to look at the pictures of his smiling face as Leeds’ players set off flares and sprayed champagne at full-time, no appeals for sympathy either. He was almost out of contract at Elland Road and he was the prime example of why other footballers in his situation last season turned down requests from their clubs to extend their deals to the end of a fixture list delayed by COVID-19. Free agents could see the risks. Berardi agreed to play on and three days before the final game, his ACL went.

Berardi would later say that if knee surgery was a price to pay for promotion and the end of Leeds’ 16-year run in the EFL then, quite honestly, it was worth the hassle. “It was my job, so I was ready,” he said. But the injury left him in a corner. Berardi was effectively unattached and as of the middle of July, there was no agreement in place at Leeds. The club were indicating that they wanted him to stay but Berardi told friends of his feeling that in all probability, he and his wife Erika would leave for Italy in the days after the season finished. Instead, Berardi found himself flying out to Spain for a medical procedure on his knee in Barcelona.

This Monday, his tailored rehabilitation programme moved into its last phase as Berardi resumed training with Leeds at Thorp Arch. His initial sessions are understood to have gone well and between murderball and planned appearances for the under-23s, he is a handful of steps away from Premier League football. The longest-serving member of Leeds’ squad — six and a half years and counting — has life in him yet and light on the horizon.

Leeds decided after Berardi sustained his injury that they would renew his contract for another 12 months, in the main to help him through his recovery and provide professional support. Victor Orta, the club’s director of football, began drawing up a deal and many of their senior players wanted Berardi to be looked after financially, given that he had no prospect of signing for anyone else in the short term. Terms were agreed in October more than two months after his operation. Sources at Leeds say Berardi held off because he was reluctant to draw a wage when surgeons were projecting an absence of six to nine months.

The club saw it differently. Berardi’s contract was not a sympathy vote, or not entirely, and before it was signed, he underwent checks to establish that the damage to his ACL carried no significant risk of preventing him from resuming his career. He was included in the 25-man squad submitted to the Premier League by Leeds at the end of the summer transfer window and Marcelo Bielsa was anticipating as far back as December that Berardi would be fit before the end of the season. There is a third of the campaign remaining and ample time for the defender to feature in a match-day squad.

Leeds dispatched Berardi to Barcelona for surgery (he would later do initial physiotherapy work at an Italian facility in Brescia) because they were anxious to source the best treatment for him. The club’s head of medicine and performance, Rob Price, keeps a track of the surgical specialists and picked out the Steadman Clinic in Colorado for Adam Forshaw’s groin operation last year. ACL procedures have advanced significantly from the days when such an injury was so severe it could threaten a footballer with retirement. Berardi’s knee was treated within a fortnight.

“Surgery now is much more advanced and so are the rehab protocols,” says Paul Perkins, a physiotherapist who worked at Leeds for almost eight years until 2014. “You can be a lot more aggressive with how you treat an ACL now because of the research and the developments in treatment. My uncle had an ACL injury a long time ago and was left with a big scar down the front of his knee. Surgeons now are much less invasive and clubs navigate towards people who are renowned in that field, which will be why Berardi went abroad.

“Everything’s moved forward and as a physio, you’re usually working on the knee even before surgery takes place, trying to bring the swelling down and making sure the joint is what we’d call ‘quiet’. When the operation’s done, a player’s pretty much back on his feet from day one. The rehab starts straight away because it’s not good to sit doing nothing. Usually, you’re talking six to nine months to get past an ACL (rupture) properly but that doesn’t mean you can waste time.”

The range and severity of ACL damage vary enormously but reconstruction surgery is often done using muscle grafts taken from a player’s hamstring. Perkins said that professional footballers usually start regaining strength in their knee after six weeks and can aim to begin straight-line running after three months. Rehab then moves on to gradual runs involving twisting and more sport-specific routines, designed to build up the right muscle groups.

“Rather than getting too fixated on time, nowadays you can fully analyse everything,” Perkins says. “It’s no longer a case of, ‘That’s six months gone so he must be getting there’. As an example, there needs to be a good ratio between the strength of a player’s hamstrings and the strength of his quads. If that ratio’s a long way off, you know there’s a much bigger chance of the player re-injuring himself. You can use methods like single hops and triple hops to assess how the strength in each leg compares and you have machines for measuring a lot of it. What that means is that it’s easier to get the timing right when it comes to doing more work.

“It’s a balance between pushing hard enough but not pushing too hard. If you find that swelling in the knee is too severe or won’t shift quickly, you’re probably doing too much. But with an ACL, you want to be working on it constantly.”

Berardi, whom Leeds expected to be absent for up to nine months, is seven months into his recovery and well on schedule. He has been a centre-back under Bielsa and remains in the frame at Thorp Arch but with Robin Koch close to recovering from knee surgery of his own, Berardi will rejoin a large pool of defenders and a depth of competition. There is not thought to be a further option in his deal and the 32-year-old will be looking at another renegotiation in the summer, assuming both sides want to discuss a fresh extension.

Previously, there were periods in Berardi’s time at Elland Road when the club wondered if he was minded to move on. In 2018, before Bielsa’s appointment, Leeds suspected that Berardi’s preference would be to return to Italy. He was close to Pontus Jansson and is known to have been disappointed by his sale to Brentford in 2019, astute though that decision turned out to be. Berardi has a knack of being friends with everyone and avoiding cliques, “a reference for all his team-mates,” as Bielsa put it this season.

“His opinion is one the changing room listens to,” Bielsa said. “And also the staff.”

The appreciation of him at Leeds is despite the flashpoints where his temper threatened to cloud everything or when red card after red card came close to casting him as a liability. And like all of the players who were promoted with Bielsa, he has the challenge of demonstrating that he boasts the ability and the temperament for the Premier League. But for all his quirks and wilder tendencies — denting the dressing room door after his red card at Millwall last season, leaping over an advertising board to strangle Patrick Bamford in celebration after Pablo Hernandez’s winner at Swansea City — people at Leeds try to make the point that Bielsa sees Berardi as a fundamentally good footballer who is easy to coach and easy to direct. Bielsa admires his discipline, as contradictory as that might sound.

Berardi, though, has always been a contradiction. Football brings out the beast — “the fire inside me”, as he once said — but away from the sport, he is quiet and affectionate. He and Erika had their first child last month, a boy called Gabriel, and Bielsa still has his back.

Between the new arrival, promotion and the late prospect of appearing in the Premier League, this has been a special year for him, a year that even an ACL could not spoil. In a way, the rewards feel like karma.

Zaph

Partey and Tierney both missing for Arsenal on Sunday.

Seathrun66

Zaph wrote: »

Partey and Tierney both missing for Arsenal on Sunday.

Excellent. And now that our bad run on London pitches has ended surely we'll have no fear of visiting the Emirates.

newhouse87

If one more Liverpool fan tells me they are getting raphinha to me today, would be a terrible decision by the club if he has was left go in the summer, we should at least get 2 years out of him.

Hijpo

newhouse87 wrote: »

If one more Liverpool fan tells me they are getting raphinha to me today, would be a terrible decision by the club if he has was left go in the summer, we should at least get 2 years out of him.

Contracted to 2024, no obligation or pressure to sell him.

event

He'll stay for another year then leave i reckon.
If he keeps up his form until then, he would be a 50m player which is pretty good and we'd have to accept

10000maniacs

Kalvin is out for the next few games. I hope Shacks is up for this.

newhouse87

event wrote: »

He'll stay for another year then leave i reckon.
If he keeps up his form until then, he would be a 50m player which is pretty good and we'd have to accept

Hes a 50m player now in my opinion. But yeah i agree another season we will get.

Ceist_Beag

10000maniacs wrote: »

Kalvin is out for the next few games. I hope Shacks is up for this.

Do you think there is a chance he will move Klich back alongside Dallas and put Roberts in? I would prefer Shacks in there myself but I'm not sure it's a given that Bielsa will start him.

is_that_so

10000maniacs wrote: »

Kalvin is out for the next few games. I hope Shacks is up for this.

Is that confirmed?

event

He does pick up a lot of knocks and suspensions. Thank god we got a few wins, hes the one player we dont have a replacement for

10000maniacs

is_that_so wrote: »

Is that confirmed?

This is always reasonably accurate.

10000maniacs

Ceist_Beag wrote: »

Do you think there is a chance he will move Klich back alongside Dallas and put Roberts in? I would prefer Shacks in there myself but I'm not sure it's a given that Bielsa will start him.

When Kalvin went off against Palace, this was the formation with Shacks as a direct replacement. By that stage we had hammered any fight out of Palace anyway, so its not a good measure of whether its a good formation.

Ceist_Beag

is_that_so wrote: »

Is that confirmed?

According to Phil Hay from the last presser it's not confirmed. He's doubtful but no decision made yet.

Seathrun66

10000maniacs wrote: »

Kalvin is out for the next few games. I hope Shacks is up for this.

Bielsa said this morning that he 'may' not make the Arsenal match. What's the source for him missing a few games?

10000maniacs

Seathrun66 wrote: »

Bielsa said this morning that he 'may' not make the Arsenal match. What's the source for him missing a few games?

According to The Athletic, he will be out for between 7 and 30 days.
We have matches on Sunday and Friday.

is_that_so

10000maniacs wrote: »

According to The Athletic, he will be out for between 7 and 30 days.
We have matches on Sunday and Friday.

How do they know what Bielsa doesn't seem to know? May suggests a late fitness test.

10000maniacs

is_that_so wrote: »

How do they know what Bielsa doesn't seem to know? May suggests a late fitness test.

If he comes out for both matches, then they will be proved wrong. If he comes out for the Wolves match but not the Arsenal match, they will be correct by a day.

Seathrun66

10000maniacs wrote: »

According to The Athletic, he will be out for between 7 and 30 days.
We have matches on Sunday and Friday.

You may turn out to be right but that contradicts what Bielsa stated this morning, and even the most embedded journalist isn't going to have information that MB is not privy to.

If there's doubt I'd prefer him rested and ready for the Wolves game.

is_that_so

So Kevin Keegan has things to say! Lots!

https://theathletic.co.uk/2384061/2021/02/13/kevin-keegan-at-70-anybody-could-run-newcastle-better-than-ashley/