Looking ahead to Espanyol on Saturday

[Grapo2001]

What are people's expectations of this match?

I would like to see Soldado, Paulinho and Sandro all play some part of they are fit.

Bale playing would be absolutely brilliant, but I fear he still may be "injured".

Defence is another problem. We don't have an indication of how close Daws, Verts and Kaboul are so it may be another bodge job.

I would like to see as close to the starting lineup v Palace as possible.

 

[Lufti]

Holtby playing would be great. Other than that Paul and Soldado are the two I want to see, and hopefully a better game from Chadli

 

[Blake Griffin]

not seeing livermore and fryers as our cb pairing would be a nice start.

 

[robin09]

Lloris​

Naughton Walker Livermore BAE​

​

Paulinho​

Dembele Holtby​

​

Lennon .......................Chadli​

Soldado​

​

That's probably about as close to a full eleven given injuries and 'injuries'.​

​

Maybe Sandro and Kaboul can come on, but probably unlikely.​

 

[EnfieldYiddo]

Lloris​

Naughton Walker Livermore BAE​

​

Paulinho​

Dembele Holtby​

​

Lennon .......................Chadli​

Soldado​

​

That's probably about as close to a full eleven given injuries and 'injuries'.

Maybe Sandro and Kaboul can come on, but probably unlikely.

No sign of Holtby training yet IIRC?

Also that team looks weak man, depressingly so one week before our season kicks off.

 

[carpediem991]

Hopefully we can win this by a goal of Soldado so we can go with a good feeling into the season. Centre back situaation will be interesting.

 

[chinaman]

Anybody thinks AVB will still be hiding his aces just to unleash them when it matters?

 

[Blake Griffin]

what are the chances of bale playing? i'm guessing slim to none.

 

[brasil_spur]

Lloris​

Naughton Walker Livermore Rose​

​

Parker​

Paulinho Dembele​

Lennon .......................Chadli​

Soldado​

 

[brasil_spur]

No sign of Holtby training yet IIRC?

Also that team looks weak man, depressingly so one week before our season kicks off.

I'd say that Kaboul will be playing that first game, he seems close enough but probably they won't want to play him until then. Verts may well be back too.

If we get Capoue in by the end of this week then that also puts us in a stronger position.

 

[EnfieldYiddo]

Lloris​

Naughton Walker Livermore Rose​

​

Parker​

Paulinho Dembele​

Lennon .......................Chadli​

Soldado​

Looking forward to seeing Paulie and Soldado but Jesus that defence is absolutely awful

 

[kaz Hirai]

what are the chances of bale playing? i'm guessing slim to none.

unlikely, he'll probably 'recover' in time for Wales next week though

 

[robin09]

No sign of Holtby training yet IIRC?

Also that team looks weak man, depressingly so one week before our season kicks off.

Oh shit yeah I forgot Holtby is injured too. Well he'd more likely play Parker or Hudd anyway, if they haven't been sold.

The defence is weak, but it doesn't really concern me as long as Dawson or Kaboul are fit enough to start the palace game. Anyone can sit in next to them and make a go of it against Palace.

 

[EnfieldYiddo]

Oh shit yeah I forgot Holtby is injured too. Well he'd more likely play Parker or Hudd anyway, if they haven't been sold.

The defence is weak, but it doesn't really concern me as long as Dawson or Kaboul are fit enough to start the palace game. Anyone can sit in next to them and make a go of it against Palace.

The worry is for Swansea and Arse.

Bony and Michu are nothing to be sniffed at as a partnership

 

[Kendall]

Can't see anything other than another disjoined team. Bale if he stays, won't play for us until the window shuts (that's post-Arsenal by the way) IMO. Paulinho and Soldado probably won't start, Defoe will be out, Adebayor by all accounts has disappeared, and I can't see where we'll magic up some central defenders from.

Apologies if I'm sounding a bit moany, but for all the quality we have in our squad at the moment, I think we're extremely unprepared, with players potentially leaving and lots of injuries.

 

[WiganSpur]

Wouldn't be surprised to see Friedel instead of Lloris and Hudd instead of Dembele. Think the team and bench will be;

Friedel​

Naughton Walker Livermore Rose​

Huddlestone​

Parker----Paulinho​

Lennon----------------------Sigurdsson​

Soldado​

​

Lloris, Veljkovic, Stewart, Fryers, Dembele, Sandro, Bentaleb, Carroll, Chadli, Townsend, Kane, Falque

 

[luka loopy]

Lloris​

Naughton Walker Livermore Rose​

​

Parker​

Paulinho Dembele​

Lennon .......................Chadli​

Soldado​

Tbh I think given the amount of injuries we have that is still a pretty strong line up. We don't have to look back far to find a season when our strongest XI couldn't compete with that team (CB's aside of course).

The list of names missing gives an idea of our depth : Vertonghen, Kaboul, Dawson, Sandro, Holtby, Bale. Not far from £200m worth of talent there.

Doubt Paulinho and Soldado will start. Probably off the bench in the 2nd half. Hope I'm wrong though.

 

[chrissivad]

someone was talking about a game at the training ground (?) today.
Should have been yesterday, but was changed for some reason. With the XI/U21's playing yesterday and again on Friday against Chelsea in their opening game we must be putting the first team squad out.

 

[TheChosenOne]

I'm not going of course but I am happy at the thought that my eldest son Paul (33)
is taking my youngest son Rory (10) to the match - continuing the traditional family
rite of passage nearly 50 years since my own first visit to WHL.

Everyone has to start somewhere - I reckon I saw about 500 or so live games at the very
least during my time, all around the country and Europe.

 

[robin09]

The worry is for Swansea and Arse.

Bony and Michu are nothing to be sniffed at as a partnership

I'd be targeting the Arsenal fixture as the game we absolutely have to have our stronger team sorted by.

By then Bale will be sorted one way or another, and Dawson and Verts should both be fit. Maybe even Kaboul and Sandro I hope. Plus Paulinho, Chadli and Soldado will have had 1 friendly and 2 prem games to get used to the Prem. plus any extra additions should be familiar by then.

It is ridiculous for a multi million pound professional team to seem half cooked going into the start of the league campaign, but I really do think we just need to try and pick up 4 points from the first two games and then get ourselves sorted.