Clint

15 goals in 36 starts for Celtic is a bit of an indicator Kirku.

This is bizarre given how woeful we have been since the Man City match. Roberts scores goals and creates chances and is more likely than most to have a pop from range rather than trying to walk the ball into the net, which clearly isn’t working.

Nothing to do with the injuries and the amount of money spent then?

When we played Newcastle, Leitner was superb and dictated the game. Against better midfields, he will struggle. If was capable of dictating play against top 10 premier league sides, he’d be playing for one. 5 of the next 6 matches are against teams more akin to Newcastle than Man Utd quality and I would expect Leitner to be far more effective in these matches. This assumes he plays as a deep lying midfielder and not in the no 10 role, where he really shouldn’t ever be considered again.

As already pointed out, Farke got the team selection wrong today against an extremely physical and pacey Man Utd team. But something like 7 of the next 8 matches are against teams you’d hope we’d be capable of picking up points again, not Man Utd. As per Newcastle, those are the types of games Leitner can have a massive influence in but not if he’s playing in the no 10 role.

I doubt we’d have lost 5-1 to Villa if Hanley was playing. He a better option at CB than Amadou purely as it would then allow us to play him at DM. Although from what I’ve seen, Hanley’s the better CB anyway. He’s also better than a half fit CB, whichever one it is as we’ve had several of those play this season. Although it’s all irrelevant anyway if he remains injured.

I think it’s fair to say that if Farke is preferring to play a half (if that) fit Godfrey on painkillers and Amadou at CB, he doesn’t think this lad is ready yet. By playing Amadou at CB not only is that not his preferred position but we also lose his ability to play DM, which is greatly needed. Pretty much a lose-lose situation!

Hopefully precautionary. I’d be happy if all of our players pulled out of the national squads for this international break.

I think there will be a very fine line between staying up and going down. IMHO had we signed a couple more players, we’d be sitting comfortably in mid table. We’re not far off being a very decent team but it was very naive to hope we wouldn’t get injuries and that everyone would step up. We seem to have planned based on the ideal dream scenario whereas what is actually happening is quite the opposite.

They’d all be ‘injured’ if we had Fergie in charge!

Whilst I don’t agree with the OP necessarily, I think had we spent more a little more in the summer, we probably would be sitting comfortably in mid table. It was a bit naive to hope we wouldn’t get injuries and that all the players would step up.

Does anyone knows what’s going on with Roberts? To bring him on for a couple of minutes was a bit of a nonsense. He’s our most direct player at present in that whilst he doesn’t have the pace of Onel, he’ll take people on and have a shot. Surely he should’ve got at least 20 mins yesterday to have a go?

But Pep is still a genius!?!?

Great news, I wasn’t aware so thanks for posting.

Aggy, Rhodes wouldn’t be the answer to Pukki being injured (although he did a decent job last season) but he would likely be much more the answer to Drmic being injured than Srbeny or Idah. The key is if Drmic stays fit but my point was it’s a big risk to assume he will do, based on his track record. He’s currently been available for only 25% of our matches and unlikely to be in the squad for Sat either. That means Srbeny will likely be our option from the bench again. I’d much rather be bringing Rhodes on if we need a goal than Dennis!