Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
We could sign Dave instead?
What's your point regarding James?
It's not beyond the realms of possibility that a player of his style, who has not played more than 28 games a season for 6 years, and has a history of muscle strains, has struggled with the pace and intensity in his 1st season in a new country. Not just any league, but the Premier league, 1 of the most physically demanding leagues in the world, during a season in which a global pandemic has meant a compact schedule of a game every 4 or 5 days, with no pre season, and restricted training.
All of this while having to try and settle in a new country in the most bizarre of circumstances, and playing for a team that has, for the most part, struggled with a lack of pace and mobility with a squad that is at best patchy.
The whole team has ran out of steam. And not just our team either. I would say the majority of players across the league can't wait to draw a line under this season and forget it ever happened.
Granted, it would have been nice for him to play tonight in front of the fans in attendance, but I'm not 1 for trivialising any injury, because you don't know the severity until you experience it yourself.
I'm hoping for a proper preseason, an overhaul of the squad, and hopefully a game plan that doesn't involve 85 minutes of backs to the wall, everyone man behind the ball defending. Then we should see more of the glimpses we've seen this year and can play to his strengths rather than asking the most gifted player we've had in generations to just "get stuck in".
It's funny how players with his skill set get asked to put the same shift in as everyone else, but it's never really expected that the players who are all effort to just score and create loads more.
I'd be fatigued turning up and playing with some of the charlatans that are in a squad when you're a player as good as him, while looking like a Greek Adonis.