Injuries abating. He's already won games with the spine of the side intact earlier in the season against similar opposition to the 7 games we have from 30 December til 26 February. He'll also have at least two fewer games in that time than Ancelotti played in 2021 as the fixture congestion eases up (we've played four more league games this season by this date than the last.)
But basically it comes back to 'the pattern'. This squad always has mini-spurts of good form, then drop off a cliff. They are cowards who need to be given a flat run to play into confidence, and some of the sides coming up will give them it. Newcastle and Norwich are absolutely dreadful, I saw it with my own eyes yesterday.
But while I'm fairly confident Benitez will pick up around 14 from 21 points available in that Jan/Feb run if I had to guess (not because I'm a Benitez fan but because I think ANY manager would), he has to earn the right to be given that chance, because if we're on, say, 18 points going into the new year then that run of games is about relegation survival at that point and he should be sacked.
But today we literally had one definite guaranteed starter out. I admit, he's a very good guaranteed starter in DCL, but still, he doesn't patch up our midfield (because Benitez will keep on playing 2 in there). He doesn't solve our right-back issues or make Benitez realise Digne needs to cross the halfway line to have any impact on a game.
Mina - as much as he's our best defender - was up for sale in the summer. I can't count him as a guaranteed starter because well, frankly he isn't, and today does he stop any of those goals we concede? He definitely doesn't stop the first three, that's for sure.
So he's running out of excuses there mate. We had DCL and Mina out who would have started the game if fit. Davies is the only other one now. He's a very poor manager and tactically stuck about 10 years ago. Who the hell plays 4-4-1-1 nowadays mate? There's not one other team I can think of that does and I have to watch a lot of crap footy.
Well we'll see, I'm really not confident because I think we're going to be running players into the ground. Benitez is lumping a lot on DCL coming back as he was. Well that's going to be touch and go. For one, he wasn't flying at the start of the season at all, and we only created two chances for him from open play. One he scored v S'ton, the other v Leeds he missed. He wasn't able to have a pre-season and he had a broken toe, and then he's had this bad injury and will have been out for 3 and a half months. That's a very long time. He's got to come back into a period where he'll be expected to play every three days, in the middle of winter in a team devoid of confidence who fail to create chances for their strikers in the area, which is what DCL needs to be effective.
And like I said, we have Richarlison and our best defender in Mina set to miss a week at the end of January. They have to play two games each in three days and travel 1000s of miles.
I agree with you on the pattern and I want the jokers above Benitez to be held to account but that doesn't equate to Benitez having to be stuck with. He's just not cut out for it. I want him to turn it around and I want him to get time but I just don't see how he can because every single game he keeps showing himself up mate. Every game.
