Hoping this layoff was a blessing in disguise for Ruben. He'll have plenty of time off to recover, rest, train, recover... so many follow up injuries happen when coming back from a serious injury, that he'll have plenty of time to train his entire body fully fit.

Yeah I am hoping that we get a fully fit and ready Ruben. 
 

Rmember that Spurs will also have Kane back and most squads will be 100% full squad so need everyone raring to go. 

Franco Zola on sky this morning saying Lofty if gets fit will be one of the top players

Fascinated to see his return. I'm honestly not sure if he will press enough to fit perfectly into Frank's tactics. 

Great player in his pomp but we may need to adjust our approach to suit him. He and Jorginho in a high press is the stuff of nightmares for defenders.

4 hours ago, Gol15 said:

Would be some footballer with Ruud’s body!

50 minutes ago, Richard P said:

Would be some footballer with Ruud’s body!

He’d be playing prison football...

12 hours ago, Spiller86 said:

Fascinated to see his return. I'm honestly not sure if he will press enough to fit perfectly into Frank's tactics. 

Great player in his pomp but we may need to adjust our approach to suit him. He and Jorginho in a high press is the stuff of nightmares for defenders.

I would include him in our best midfield 3, if everyone is fit and operating at optimum levels I would have a midfield trio of Kante, Kova & RLC. 

LOFTUS-CHEEK EXCLUSIVE ON RETURN TO TRAINING, CHALLENGES IN LOCKDOWN AND REVISING TARGETS

Like a new signing!

From the most recent inhouse games

Billy can't stop him

Zouma, Willy and Kovacic can't stop him

Really hope he can stay injury free. Last season, he was a really important player for his and he finally broke into the first 11. He is exciting to watch when he’s on the ball. 

I dont see how we can keep Barkley, Mount and Loftus Cheek. 

12 hours ago, jack_super_class said:

I dont see how we can keep Barkley, Mount and Loftus Cheek. 

Why not? We haven’t signed anyone to take his place. If we sign Havertz as an attacker and view Barkley as mainly a CAM in a 4-2-3-1 then I could see him moving on. Providing we don’t sign anymore CM’s or AM’s I reckon we’ll keep all three at least until January. Barkley is the only one who it’s possible the club would sell at any point in the near future IMO.

38 minutes ago, EdinburghBlue said:

Why not? We haven’t signed anyone to take his place. If we sign Havertz as an attacker and view Barkley as mainly a CAM in a 4-2-3-1 then I could see him moving on. Providing we don’t sign anymore CM’s or AM’s I reckon we’ll keep all three at least until January. Barkley is the only one who it’s possible the club would sell at any point in the near future IMO.

I think that's right. Most of us don't see Barkley adding anything consistently.

From my perspective I see Mount and Ruben as utterly different players. Mount does his best work off the ball. He leads our press, is unselfish in his movement and linkup play, he enables others around him.

Ruben is more of a guy who you want the ball at his feet, he can be a difference maker, but I still see him struggling to shake off Mourinhos assessment that he is lazy off the ball. I can see Mount initially being used as a starter with Ruben as a difference maker of the bench. That is unless Ruben is willing to step up his work off the ball and become a more complete player.

Barkley is just a massively frustrating player. He makes tons of wrong decisions in games. Here and there he does something only best players do like his goal against Liverpool or his assist against Everton (funny enough these were back to back games). He doesn't know when to hold on the ball and when to pass on.

If he ends up leaving I am not too sad. But again I think we would need to sign someone like Havertz for this to happen.

I am so excited to see Ruben back. Like a new signing once more.

Our total midfield going into next season, max 5 players is

Kante, Kovacic, Jorginho, Gilmour, Barkley, RLC, Mount, Ziyech, Pulisic, CHO. 

It feels like Barkley is a bit of a luxury in that squad, perhaps we will run it until January. Though if someone puts in a bid in the summer I suspect we will sell. 

1 hour ago, bisright1 said:

Our total midfield going into next season, max 5 players is

Kante, Kovacic, Jorginho, Gilmour, Barkley, RLC, Mount, Ziyech, Pulisic, CHO. 

It feels like Barkley is a bit of a luxury in that squad, perhaps we will run it until January. Though if someone puts in a bid in the summer I suspect we will sell. 

That's quite pleasing, isn't it. Enough quality for rotation, plus the all important own youf!

I'm curious how Hudson-Odoi will develop. I was a tad disappointed after his return from injury, but now that everybody is lacking match fitness it's a more of a level playing field  He should be able to step up.

1 hour ago, Valerie said:

That's quite pleasing, isn't it. Enough quality for rotation, plus the all important own youf!

I'm curious how Hudson-Odoi will develop. I was a tad disappointed after his return from injury, but now that everybody is lacking match fitness it's a more of a level playing field  He should be able to step up.

whats happening to CHO's court case? Cant simply just pretend something like that never happened

54 minutes ago, driller97 said:

whats happening to CHO's court case? Cant simply just pretend something like that never happened

I think pretending nothing happened is a legalrequirement until we know if it goes ahead. Figure we will know more in next couple of weeks

6 hours ago, driller97 said:

whats happening to CHO's court case? Cant simply just pretend something like that never happened

i'm sure someone has to be charged before a court case takes place 

2 hours ago, turnyitb said:

i'm sure someone has to be charged before a court case takes place 

My expectation is we find out in the next week whether he is being charged or not. I think the norm is to wait up to 28 days before being charged so the police can conduct thorough enquires. 

The complete absence of any media on this issue indicates that it is still ongoing. 

16 hours ago, evissy said:

Barkley is just a massively frustrating player. He makes tons of wrong decisions in games. Here and there he does something only best players do like his goal against Liverpool or his assist against Everton (funny enough these were back to back games). He doesn't know when to hold on the ball and when to pass on.

If he ends up leaving I am not too sad. But again I think we would need to sign someone like Havertz for this to happen.

I am so excited to see Ruben back. Like a new signing once more.

Totally agree with you. I really want him to do well. The way he moved through the gears against Liverpool the ball was coming outta the net while the keeper was in mid air.  He didn’t come with a massive price tag and I’m sure he’s not on a huge wage. 

If frank can get him to play like the last two games I’d keep him. I see us playing mostly 4-3-3 as frank gets his own players. he could cover for the right centre mid. 

FYI: RLC played in the practice match vs Reading

I think everyone needs to temper their expectations on Ruben for the rest of the season. Mount will be first choice when the games restart in my opinion and rightfully so. Although I can’t wait for the Twitter meltdowns about that!

 

i love Ruben as a player & on his day he is terrific and was really starting to be a key payer for us last year. However, so far in his career he’s yet to show anything on a consistent basis other than being made of glass. I think Frank will use him mostly off the bench for the rest of the season. Next season is massive for him, he needs to stay injury free for a large part of it.

On 07/06/2020 at 10:08, jack_super_class said:

I dont see how we can keep Barkley, Mount and Loftus Cheek. 

The latter 2 have both signed new long term contracts under Lampard, they arent going anywhere. Barkley's days are numbered, any sort of decent offer and i think we would be pushing him out the door. Too inconsistent. Also long term who knows where Lampard sees mount and RLC playing, he talked about how RLC can play deeper during preseason, and he has used mount all over aswell.