I expected Downes not to play. Hopefully it is just precautionary with Tuesday(today's result dependent) being where biggest need for him lies.
Like others the refusal to start Charles, despite him deputising ably midweek, is very odd. Hope the midfield doesn't end up being unbalanced and cost us the game.
Is it really a good sign? Surely it's the sort of role you'd ideally want to have some stability in and not have someone who on the big team's shortlist's immediately.
It's funny I was thinking about Macca over the weekend and how he was a good shot stopper at his peak. I was wondering if because of that he had declined faster with age than keepers who are great organisers/positional/physically.
Hope it was more of a confidence / injury thing and we see a revival over the run in. (Nice that he got a confidence building clean sheet to start) If so he'd be an upgrade over the poor shot stopper bazanu even if he's less assured with ball at his feet.
It’s a shame for bazanu that’s he’s injured. If we’re lose a player to injury we’re lucky it is him and not a key player.
It is about playing to mccarthy’s strengths. He’s not going to have the distribution but Hopefully he can show himself to be a better shot stopper, cross dealer, which are attributes i value in a gk.
Find Martin’s whole i don’t want to put a cm on the bench because it limits his attacking options logic extremely weird. With 9 spots on the bench it seems that there is room to accommodate that and still have a variety of attacking options.