It was always going to happen after the missed games. It's rubbish but no-ones fault really and I'd prefer it to drifting through the rest of the season with a few games in hand until April/May and trying to fit them in there. This way we can at least see where the real position in the league is and not be over-burdened when it comes to the end of the season. Feels likely to cause issues though.
Assuming everyone is fit (O9 apart) then I think we have a strong enough squad to rotate Burge Sanderson Wright Willis Hume Leadbitter Gooch Power Scowen McGeady Wyke Patterson McLaughlin Flanagan Feeney McFadzean Dobson Diamond Embleton Maguire O'Brien Grigg Both of those teams should be able to compete with the majority of L1 teams, and you can add Kimpioka, Curry, Neil and Younger to the mix too
with 13 players recovering from covid , God knows where we are fitness-wise, we're going to need our entire squad to step up to the mark . A good signing really early in January would be massive boost to morale.
Did these 13 have covid or are they isolating because of contact with someone who really does have covid. My guess is that most of these 13 did not have covid and are now finishing their self isolating so only a minimal amount of extra training needed to regain full fitness. It’s probably about 2 or 3 who have had it and from those maybe only 1 or 2 of the first team squad. We’ve been able to get a few of the other injured players back so it’s not looking bad to be honest.
The ones who had to isolate surely got tested and if negative no longer have to isolate so not sure that's all it is. I think more than 2 or 3 must have been positive mate. Thought I read somewhere that all 3 keepers had it?
Johnson has said that all 3 keepers tested positive and one has been quite ill as a result. Doesn't bode well and I reckon that we'll have a tier4 national lockdown on the cards shortly. Season could well be postponed by a month.
Even if we get a clean bill of health it seems unlikely that all of our opponents will avoid the current outbreak. Be lucky to play half of the 8 imo.
Feels this way at the moment, but then you have the Oxford vaccine getting approval today, we are probably only a month or two from a lot of the highly vulnerable being vaccinated.
It’s such a strange disease. I had it in February and got much fitter on the back of it. I know runners who had it, were running marathons and more before, and even 6 months on struggle with 4 miles. Impacts different people in different ways. Hope they all get to fitness quickly. Going to be a tough month
Last night there were more games postponed than got played in L1 and of the games that went ahead, none of the teams at the top were playing so basically all our rivals are in the same boat in terms of lots of games to cram in. It will come down to squad depth and January is the time to bolster if you can although the salary cap will hinder this. I'd like to see several clubs i.e. us, Pompey, Ipswich etc ask for the salary cap to be postponed as it's clear every team needs to reinforce their numbers with the games still to play. Either that or an extension to the season but that's just kicking the can down the road imo.
Lee Johnson said that one of the goalies had it worse than the other 13. But it seems in the EFL the testing has been no where near the level in the Premier. From what I heard on the radio yesterday, most clubs at our level had to have tests before the season started and are scheduled for another squad test in January. They only do additional tests if a player has covid symptoms No wonder we are in this mess.
Are they all likely to go ahead? How many of the games are against teams that haven't yet had postponements due to the coronavirus?
