FireSide

#AfterThought

Santos

After Santos debut and great performance against Palmeira, Any fear, anyone had on Lavia's absence has certainly faded.

The reasoning is, if he managed to hold and command on his own, then he can certainly and comfortably do it alongside King Caicedo himself in place of vulnerable Lavia.

Now Maresca has only one task at hand. Establish a formidable cohesion between Santos and Essugo. With this, the rotations will be seamless and our fear of the unknown in midfield would be a thing of the past.

Crossed fingers.

FireSide

#AfterThought

Gusto

Has Gusto fallen? Has he suddenly become a shitty player?

The answer is NO.

The excitement and Comfortability we had with Gusto as Reece's understudy was not far fetched. Gusto is a good fullback.

Now, he is just suffering from the discomfort of learning new roles. He is sometimes pushed to the left back, sometimes Maresca calls him to invert, Tomorrow he is playing the left or right attack wing, he is learning.

In fact this should show you Maresca's trust in his versatility. Only that it has not clicked yet. And during learning, he is always caught in the wrong moments at the wrong places.

If you tell the man to just stick as RB, he will certainly flourish as he used to.

But..... He must learn. And we must wait.

Kudos to these guys for improving their fitness and injury proneness 👏

Facing familiar faces in the semifinals… but who comes out on top?

Noni Madueke has averaged 0.13 expected assists per 90 since joining Chelsea - roughly one expected assist every 8 games.

[Via xGPhilosophy]