‘key’……March and Mitoma were pivotal, not just in terms of their ability but how we look to play. We also missed Pervis pairing with Mitoma so even when Mitoma was fit he was doubled up on. Newcastle are similar to us in terms of injuries and have also fallen a few places (and failed in Europe).
……but for that to happen, we’d gave started the season with effectively our current squad (excluding Moder) without March, Mitoma, Enciso…….if we’d have gone into a new season without those kind of players in the squad then we’d deserve to be struggling. Key injuries have absolutely crippled us.
……..….apart from Barber being on record as saying the amount of research De Zerbi did before being interviewed was enormous, to the extent him and Bloom were shocked.