Nkoulou and Sarr both out for an undetermined amount of time (rest of the season, anyone?). Sierralta still working in the gym after his fresh hamstring injury. Good news is that Kabasele is back in training and Sema is back running outside already. I say good news, neither of them are actually good enough but at least they’re bodies. https://www.watfordfc.com/news/team-news-leicester-city-v-watford
Sarr is less of a concern than N'koulou for me. When we went down we only had two quality available wingers, now we have 5 or 6 in Dennis, Cucho, Pedro, Baah, Sema. Not good but we'll be OK. (Minus Sarr, of course) We are now down back to Cathcart and WTE in CB which is a bigger worry.
The prospect of Sarr being missing doesn't terrify me like it would have done previously, we are far better stocked in the forward areas than we were the last time we were in the Prem, although it is still a blow as I'd be surprised if JP/Cucho proved to be as productive as Sarr has been (and not least as well because it's a strain on our depth). I am terrified of Nkoulou being out for any length of time though, for the weekend it looks like WTE and Cathcart, and when WTE goes to AFCON we would be looking rather thin indeed. If Football Manager isn't feeding me porkies, Chile have World Cup qualifiers early next year for which Sierralta would be missing league games, we might be left with 2/3 fit defenders at certain stages, and those are the ones we know aren't PL quality
They do have 2 games around the last weekend in January, although it coincides with a rare off week in the league. Then it’s into the FA Cup 4th Round the following weekend.
Foster, Sierralta, Nkoulou, Etebo, Sarr and Dennis: likely all in our first XI. All injured. Kucka and Sema out as well, so our bench is really weak as well. We’re in massive trouble right now. Only Chelsea and Man City in our next 2 games though!
We weren't likely to get anything from the next two regardless. Rests them, get back healthy for the likes of Brentford and Burnley.
Many of them probably won't be back until February, because even if they get fit just after Xmas they'll be off to AFCON
We should genuinely forfeit the next two games, whatever loophole gets us out of a points deduction for doing it should be thoroughly explored.
I just realised I played this exact scenario in FM this morning. Ended up resigning Mapps in the January window and playing a 3-3-4, with Bachmann at CB and a recently recalled duo of PZ7 and Dijbril Toure up top. My first two games were Chelski and Man C. Sacked after two games, after losing 3-2 and 10-0.
Foster tw@ttered on twitter that his groin injury shouldnt be serious, whist stating he picked it up at training on Thurs.
Once again our great result against a big team is overshadowed by the cost of injury. Deulofeu at Liverpool, now Sarr and Nkoulou at Man Utd. While he have depth, we don't have a lot of strength within it.
https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/nicolas-nkoulou/verletzungen/spieler/60577 A man who has barely been injured in his career comes to Watford and faces his second-longest spell on the sidelines, it's beyond a joke now.
An utter disaster. This is entirely on Gino, Giaretta and Duxbury and tbeir desire to build a mish-mash unbalanced squad which was laughably labelled as being ‘enough’.
How remarkably predictable - we can't have a fully fit squad and a decent manager at the same time. That's too much to ask.
Yeah, who could have foreseen an aging player, without a proper pre-season, picking up an injury when coming back into regular action after a longish layoff? We’re ridiculous. Clearly needed an upgrade at the back, as seen by just about everybody with even a passing interest in WFC, but we wait until it’s desperate and miss the opportunity to have him properly conditioned/integrated.
Truly ****ed. Wow. The Sarr news has an air of the Chalobah injury about it. Like they know he’s long term crocked but they don’t want to admit it - perhaps to themselves. Might be worth cutting our losses this season now. We’re one injury away from Ashley Fletcher being a regular starter and I can’t imagine the owners will/can do nearly enough in January to cover all this. Plus AFCON as well. It’s actually hilarious how ****ed we are.
Most insane part is Foster had been nursing a groin injury when he played for hashtag team. What an unprofessional joke of a football club.
And we all deserve it. The podcasts, the clapping off defeats, the ‘bring lunch in a carrier baggers’, the ‘fan groups’. It’s all led to this.
The Sarr situation has £15 million (undisclosed) to Udinese written all over it following our relegation. Operation in January, not fully fit in July. You can see the posts and tweets already: "You can't keep an unhappy player" "His market value is £15m because nobody else would make an offer for him" "All good as we keep it in the family"
Awful news re Sarr and not encouraging re Nkoulou and Foster. But at least Dennis (who appears to be our best player) will be back soon. If he’s only a doubt for tomorrow’s game then he should be in contention for City or Brentford at least.
Foster playing for Hashtag United when carrying a groin injury should be a sackable offence for Ben and those who allowed it.
Don’t forget ‘makes sense, he can get fit in a better environment and come back to us when we go back up’ like the morons said about Deulofeu.
‘Gino! Fire up the little black book of Udinese reserves who are nowhere near good enough for the Premier League whilst simultaneously playing in positions we don’t need!’