Adam Smith

Good points. With Smithy being so versatile it gave the appearance of squad depth. Now that he's injured it's almost like our squad has been reduced by three players. Tricky situation for Eddie to resolve, especially since we now know that he doesn't like bringing players in in the January window. :hmmm:
 
I think you could say the same about losing any key player for long period e.g. Begovic, Ake, Steve Cook, Lerma, Wilson.....
 
Without any disrespect to Smithy, who I hope recovers soon, sometimes injuries can be exciting in that they give a chance for someone else to step up and prove himself. Who knows who it will be?
 
Without any disrespect to Smithy, who I hope recovers soon, sometimes injuries can be exciting in that they give a chance for someone else to step up and prove himself. Who knows who it will be?

I'd love to see someone from the academy get a chance, though I'm not really very familiar with who our youth fullbacks are atm. Or maybe Ibe will transform into a battling wingback :hehe::throw:
 
Without any disrespect to Smithy, who I hope recovers soon, sometimes injuries can be exciting in that they give a chance for someone else to step up and prove himself. Who knows who it will be?
Fair point but don’t think we coped particularly well last season after his injury against West Brom. He is a key part of our attack. Having said that, we have a stronger squad than last year. Maybe this will push Eddie to get mepham who can play on the right side of defence.
 
Well I'd of rather seen him playing right back but seeing as Eddie likes to play Francis it shouldn't make too much different to our starting 11, Daniels/Rico are as good as Smith at left back. Obviously if Francis gets injured we'll be in trouble.
 
Ake can play right-back but not sure we’d want to move him there. Could open the door for Mings though, which is something I would like to see.
 
Can we get Neil Young back?

On a serious note, depending on the opposition and how Eddie wants to go with our shape, I think it means Francis at rightback if we go with 4 at the back or Fraser as a wingback in a 3-5-2 or however you want to call it. Neither ideal, but both systems and personnel we are capable of getting results with until Smithy makes a miraculous recovery or the Jan window arrives.
 
Well, it's not an ideal situation, but we have good enough players already that even if somebody had to play out of position, it would be far better than rushing in a RB who wasn't ready.
 
There was paper talk earlier in the week of him maybe not seeing anyone until Tuesday, due to swelling still being quite high. I had a search this morning as I got leathered yesterday and had no idea whether I'd heard anything yet or not
 

;