Laporte injury

Is this going to be another season where we pick up injuries to key players but the dippers get none?

Let's hope this is the last of them.

Big blow. This makes us even more vulnerable from set pieces as he’s our only CB with a bit of physical presence about him. He’ll likely be replaced by Fernandinho, or possibly Garcia, neither of whom are particularly big. I wonder if when Mendy’s finally fit we’ll play Stones, Fern and Otta as a three with Walker and Mendy as wingbacks and Rodri in front of the CBS? Expect the ball will be hoofed into the box more often against us now. Shouldn’t grumble too much though, 198pts in 2 seasons without a left back worked out ok so what’s a missing CB gonna do?

The fortunate thing is that we appear to have a relatively easy run of games over the next few weeks. Personally I have no worries about Ferny playing at CB, as long as we can stop too many crosses coming into the box.

Rodri is 6ft 3 what would be so bad as to play him at centre back with ferna adopting his usual position?

If Rodri's smart enough to switch between CB and DM during the game depending on who's in possession, like Ferna did a few times last season, it opens up a whole world of attacking options. Who wouldn't want to see against certain opposition:

              Ederson
    Stones  Rodri  Otta
Walker                   Mendy
   Bernardo  KDB  Silva
       Sergio   Sterling

Never gonna happen!