Can't see McCart getting back in the team. I would be surprised if he plays central and drops De Givegny, don't see Earl being dropped on the left and Collins won't play a left footer right side.
I think Collins is right not to rush Pines into the team if he isn't properly match fit. Hopefully it won't be overlong before he's ready. The addition of Earl has been great and makes our defence look far more solid, it should be even better when Pines is ready.
Would be good to have Pines ready for the Derby County game. Need a full strength side out for that 6 pointer.
Isn't this his first u21 game, the other one planned got postponed, he played an hour of a friendly against Notts County.
I think this would be a crazy way to introduce him to English football. I’m guessing the plan is to bring him in gently and I get that totally.
We’re playing a team tomorrow that hardly ever scores. He’s got to play at some point otherwise what was the point of signing him? Feels like he’s been at the club ages. Get him up to speed for the Derby game would be my thinking.
Agreed. He should be seeing some game time by now. It's not like our defence looks solid enough to keep him from playing.
So I would like to think if you look at it objectively - if we was good enough to play and isn’t then why - cos he’s not ready yet. A head coach will play him when they believe it’s time - it’s their job on the line after all.
This is the problem innit, when you sign someone who isn’t match fit. When can you be sure that he’s ready? If he plays tomorrow and has a ‘Mael’ of a debut, Collins will get crucified for throwing him in too soon.
At the moment the only vacancy in that three is on the right side. I wonder if Pines can take that slot? Williams has to come out of there and go back to being a marauding RWB.
We've kept 1 clean sheet in our last 13 games. The other 12 both teams have scored. If we were collecting duck eggs there wouldn't be as much of a clamour to get him playing. But our defence is shaky and you make signings to improve your squad, so we have to believe he's good enough. He has been here almost as long now as the gap between pre season starting and the 1st meaningful game. He should be ready by now.
We had 6 weeks of preseason starting on 26th June and our first game kicked off on 5th August. Pines joined on the 13th Jan so in reality he’s 4 weeks into his getting match fit, 5 weeks at the end of this week - I’m sure they will use him when ready but I reckon he’s probably thinking back to Maels debut and will use him when appropriate.