This occurred to me. He might just have had a stinker but, such is the quality and intensity of the Premier League these days, even being five per cent off the pace is likely to get found out quickly.
Still better than Origi. I'm not really a fan of square pegs for players, but if their attributes match and the need is there I don't mind experimenting.
Or, and here's a really wild suggestion, we could play Origi and Wood at the same time. I know playing two strikers is pretty out there as a concept, but football's all about innovation.
The idea of dropping any of Elanga, CHO, MGW, Danilo etc for either of those two would give me the shivers. But having a player - any player - near Wood would help him.
Let's not forget that CHO was dreadful on Wednesday (Elanga wasn't much better, spending most of the game fetching his first touch). We are really short of a wide man capable of putting some pressure on these two.
Wednesday was so bad it might be best to pretend it didn't happen. Basically no positives or even lessons apart from "be less shit". I'm just trying to look to the attributes that might prove useful, especially in the possible absence of character.
For me, it's probably 3 at the back, a pick your poison with wing backs, Sangare and Mangala as the two (although I'd listen to an argument for Yates over Sangare), MGW in the hole, Origi and Wood up front.
I'd like to see 3 at the back tomorrow. Worrall, Murillo and Niakhate. With Williams and Toff. And with Turner back. Mangala, Dominguez and MGW. Wood and Elanga.
I'd like to see 3 at the back, but we sit so deep it's more like 10 at the back.
Boom boom. I'm here all week. Possibly unlike the manager / head coach.
No, I haven't started the wine yet.
I think Morgan can do some work defensively, he generally does when he's in the middle and not shoved out to the right. Primarily I want to see someone helping out Wood because he's not capable of playing as a lone striker. I'm OK if you want to replace Origi with Elanga or CHO, but they're not there in my formation to play out wide - I want to see a front two.