Reece's cameo showed more than just his quality......

Pochettino is soooooo right......

Good Afternoon Ladies and Gents,

Today is a bit of an opinion piece.

Firstly for anyone who suggested Reece should be sold or Reece shouldn’t be our captain I hope you didn’t celebrate his impact and the way he turnt the game around!

I have said it before and will say it again, Reece James is the best Right Back in the world bar none when he is fit and playing Football, considering he didn’t play for 5 months prior to Saturday he came on and slotted back in so seamlessly.

Cole Palmer spoke alongside Reece after the game and said this;

"Everyone knows how good he is. He's our captain.. Even when he's not been playing he's been leading off the pitch so to have him back playing is even better."

You could see the entire teams attitude and morale lift when he came on the pitch, any way this article isn’t actually about Reece’s performance as such.

The reason I wanted to talk about this is because although we should still have achieved better with the squad we have this season, we also do not talk about it enough the fact that some of our very best players have virtually missed the entire season through injury.

All competitions unless stated;

Reece James - 10 apps

Wesley Fofana - 0 apps

Christopher Nkunku - 12 apps

Carney Chukwuemeka - 12 apps

Romeo Lavia - 1 app

In my opinion at least 4 of the above 5 are outright starters in our best XI with arguments for all 5, they would all at least be heavily involved!

To go an entire season and have your newest attacker who would have been pivotal to our attacking fluidity unavailable and not at full fitness has been a hard one to swallow. To not have your captain and arguably only elite player available for an entire seasons is incredibly difficult. Wesley Fofana is in my opinion (when fit) the best centre back at the club and to have missed him for the entire season is really difficult.

These are not excuses for Pochettino but merely saying he is correct to be pointing out these facts when the conversation between him and the club comes up.

Even with the minimal appearances by all players mentioned are totaled up, the actual starts and minutes for each player is significantly less.

Please give me your thoughts and opinions below

Thanks for reading

Luke Rushbrook