A ready made replacement? You are joking I'm assuming. There isn't a VVD replacement on any team in the world right now. That's why this is such a big deal.
Playing midfielders as center backs. That's a hell of a contingency plan when we could have at least replaced Lovren.
Not really one player though is it? It's our keeper, our world class center back, it's our other two center backs that don't seem to fit for more than a month or so at a time. It's a combination of those things that could torpedo us. And we really could have addressed those items in the transfer window, but we decided not to and now it very well could bite us in the ass.
The priority was to strengthen 3 positions. We did that. We let Lovren and Phillips go because we didn't foresee a centre back injury crisis. Fabinho has played there in place of VVD and other defenders before, and was well able for it. He's known as "Dyson" in the dressing room, after the vacuum cleaner. He's going to have to do a lot more of it in the coming months, but I believe he's up to it.
Alisson will be back after the international break, there's not too many league games to play before then. The City away trip is the only game where his replacement will be seriously tested.
Consult m'learned friends..don't think so. They only take retrospective action if the ref couldn't see it. And now with VAR on the case it's very unlikely any incident would go unnoticed.
Oliver made a balls of it, both Ass.Refs were no help. But under the rules he could've consulted the 4th official.It would still be his call but he didn't call on the 4th official for an opinion. Coote the VAR man made an even bigger balls of it. He failed to see the challenge as a foul. He did NOTHING just gave VVD offside..and even that was debatable.
The linesman gave the offside, what the opponents of VAR want. Coote did see the serious foul play after it, but did nothing about it after he upheld the lino's decision.
You would expect Oliver to see the foul originally, he was looking at it when it happened. They're both equally at fault for the outcome of it all. As the incident was officially dealt with at the time, no retrospective action can be taken. Wouldn't be much benefit to us anyway. He'll be back in action long before VVD will.
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