weasel wrote: ↑Mon Aug 05, 2019 1:17 pm
For me it all depends on how much Bielsa rates Douglas compared to how much he rates the other options. Bielsa showed last season when Ayling came back from injury that he was prepared to give him time to get back to his best form despite the majority of fans calling for Ayling to be dropped. Once Ayling had played a few matches and got back up to 100% he was superb. Douglas may be the same but may not be at 100% yet. Same thing with Bamford and fans judging him when he wasn't anywhere near fit.
Bielsa shows the players he has faith in them and is loyal to them and usually they will repay him on the pitch once they get their fitness, form and confidence back. Douglas did have a poor game yesterday though and does need to find the level of performance that he showed for Wolves.
No matter how fit Douglas becomes, he hasn't got the pace to play the wing-back role.
Unfortunately we had one who didn't want to play for us now at Burnley
Chilli D wrote: ↑Mon Aug 05, 2019 2:44 pm
Why would Douglas not be 100% yet? He's had a full pre season the same as the others hasn't he?
Well he was injured at the end of last season so wouldn't have been running etc so would have likely started pre-season with a much lower base level of fitness. Pre-seasons aren't like they used to be with players turning up 2 stone overweight and sweating it off, nowadays they are sent away with strict regimes to follow and as such they report back to pre-season already in great shape - pre-season is then more about extra conditioning, learning new tactics, friendlies for match sharpness etc.
Cjay wrote: ↑Sat May 17, 2025 4:23 pm
I've pretended to support a team that's been crap for most of my life as part of a long term plan
Victor_Notts-17 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2026 7:03 pm
Did you post them because there's something wrong with your brain
