Shadow Puppets

They’ve had a lot more than 2 people look at it, mate. Honestly, just stop it… you’ll give yourself a heart attack with all this negativity. He told me that he saw specialists in the UK and Netherlands that both confirmed it was not necessary to get surgery, and the scan he had a few weeks ago showed no signs at all of damage.

Yes… pretty much all of that is correct. The only thing I don’t agree with is that I think, right now, there’s no need to be playing Longstaff when Miley is (presumably) fit on the bench.

Thankfully I steer well clear.

I think it’s absolutely possible that they’re related injuries…of course it is. What I’m saying is, factually, the club have been working on the advice of 3rd party specialists and Sven and the club had felt very confident that surgery wasn’t required based on the specialists advice. Whoever you choose to blame out of all of that is up to you.

Even if it is a re-occurrence (I've asked, haven't heard back yet), it still doesn't mean it's our medical department's fault. Multiple specialists had all signed him off.

I have news for you mate... 90% of players in the premier league right now are playing with some kind of injury... some ailment. Some worse than others. Practically nobody is 100% fit. That's the nature of professional sport.

I can address a few of those with facts if you like... - Barnes was out for an additional month, not because of a medical issue or something that the club had done (those pesky rubbish medical staff eh), but because the injury simply hadn't healed as fast as they initially thought it would. - Anderson, same. I spoke to his Dad recently who just said it was a really frustrating time... took ages to heal. Not sure what you want our medical staff to do about that. - Murphy was going to need surgery either way... it was just a matter of when. It just happened to reoccur in the first match back, but it's pretty common for a player with that injury to attempt to play on until the problem reoccurs. Jacob requested to postpone surgery so he could help the team, tested his shoulder prior to making himself available for selection, but it obviously didn't work. Not sure, again, why that has to be anyone's fault... doesn't seem to me like it caused any particular harm in attempting to get a few more games out of him. I know about those three + Sven's injury from the horses mouth, or from people pretty much adjacent to them. The others, I have no idea.

Not been right mentally, yes. Physically, he's been feeling fine. See my other posts. I'm not going to say anything else about it because I don't want to abuse their trust... All I will say is, there's an awful lot of people on the internet who THINK they can see what's happened, but in reality they know fuck all about the facts of the injury.

I agree the initial misdiagnosis wasn't handled well, but everything since October last year has been handled by 3rd parties. He hadn't been "feeling the effects of it" at all... in fact the last time I saw him and his family a couple of weeks back (before the Wolves game), he was very happy with it. I think he has been suffering mentally from perhaps a lack of confidence in himself or in the injury, but in terms of actual pain / movement issues... absolutely none at all.

WE have managed the injury based on multiple 3rd party specialists advice. Not entirely sure what else people want.

See my post above.

As some of you know, I’m relatively well connected to Sven and his family… they didn’t see this coming at all. All scans in recent months have shown no need for surgery. He had one in Holland around 3 weeks ago that showed no damage and no need for surgery. Obviously the way he landed on Saturday has caused something significant to change, though. And for those saying the medical staff and manager are to blame… well you’re fundamentally 100% incorrect, but you do you. Sven has seen multiple specialists both in the UK and the Netherlands, and has been reassured from every meeting until this point that surgery wasn't necessary. So if you’re desperate to blame someone, blame the specialists for not promoting the idea of surgery. It has had absolutely nothing to do with Howe and his team.

Moron.

No. My source on that is, well, as close to the horses mouth as you can get really. All his scans are absolutely fine. i think it’s a mentality problem.

It’s not a medical team failure. He had a scan 2 weeks ago at the Dutch specialist that confirmed everything looks fine. My personal opinion, and it’s just guesswork, is that he is playing within himself… tentative due to worry of it happening again. He’s had some really poor performances in the last few weeks, but you don’t become a poor player overnight for no reason.

Your general attitude in this forum is all slowly starting to make sense.

Fatigue from 10 games in 30 days over December played a huge part in our form at that time, absolutely. What we're seeing now, in my opinion is a lack of confidence. The fatigue led to more injuries. The midfield has been paperlight for most of January / February. The paperlight midfield leads to goals being conceded for fun. Which breeds a lack of confidence. I think, now that Willock, Isak, Barnes and Anderson are properly back in the picture, we'll see much improved performances within a couple of weeks. A win on Saturday, and all of a sudden we have a lot to play for. Confidence is a huge factor in football... last year we rode that confidence all the way to the Champions League. This year it has been eroded and the glaring weaknesses in our squad have been exposed, and Eddie hasn't found a solution (though I'd argue that if he can't find a solution, then who can). Win at home on Saturday and everything changes, IMO.

You single-handedly make me dislike Obama.

Trying to look at that objectively, that was a cracking cup tie that had a bit of everything. Blackburn put up a really good show, as expected in games like that, and we still blew very hot and cold. The players (and Eddie) for the first time in the last two years, looked genuinely nervous to me. Like they knew it was an absolute must win to get the season back on track. Fingers crossed that winning it will go towards reigniting our season and instilling a bit of confidence / swagger again (because it’s missing badly at the moment).

I maintain it is ALL down to the midfield not functioning properly at all without the legs of Joelinton and Willock.

As disingenuous as lambasting our form without the context of missing goalkeepers and first choice midfielders?

You what? Joelinton, Willock, Pope, Wilson, a half fit Isak.