Ten players returning from injury to shape the race for Champions League football
Ten players returning from injury to shape the race for Champions League football
The Champions League race is now the only one going in the Premier League but we’ve got quite the fight to look forward to. Five points separate Manchester City in fourth and Aston Villa in tenth, while Nottingham Forest and title-bunglers Arsenal could – fingers crossed – still be dragged into it.
Success may well hinge on the impact of players coming back from injury and we’ve picked out ten stars set to return before the end of the season who could strike telling blows to aid their teams.
We’ve used the excellent Premier Injuries for the predicted return dates of players, in chronological order.
Oscar Bobb (Manchester City) – Imminent
Amid the widespread incredulity last season that Manchester City hadn’t realised that Cole Palmer was the Messiah before allowing him to defect to Chelsea and tear up the Premier League, one of the mitigations for that undoubted blunder was the emergence of Bobb into the first team.
He featured for just 295 Premier League minutes last term but we saw enough, with his fleet-footed stoppage-time winner against Newcastle at St James’ Park the moment where we all begrudgingly conceded that City had unearthed a gem of a footballer that they didn’t even need at the time. But football comes at you fast and they really need him now.
Romeo Lavia (Chelsea) – March 2nd
Chelsea have won 1.8 points per game with Lavia in the team compared to 1.7 with Moises Caicedo and 1.67 with Enzo Fernandez. That doesn’t seem that significant a difference until you consider that the average points tally required to finish fifth (almost certainly meaning Champions League qualification in 2024/25) across the last five seasons has been 66 points and 1.8 PPG yields a tally of 68.4 points across 38 games, while 1.7 would leave Enzo Maresca’s side short on 64.6.
Chelsea aren’t just more effective with Lavia in the team but are also a dramatically more entertaining side to watch, with his ability to beat the press through taking the ball on the half-turn in tight spaces opening up every attacking option immediately. No-one else in the squad can do that, meaning Chelsea are usually slow and predictable when he’s not in the team. And crucially, Palmer is far less effective.
Nicolas Jackson (Chelsea) – March 2nd
Christopher Nkunku got a goal against Southampton, but frankly if he hadn’t he may as well have packed this football stuff in, and actually it’s Pedro Neto that’s taken on the central role in Jackson’s absence owing to his superior movement. But as is the case with Kai Havertz and Arsenal right now, there’s been a real You Don’t Know What You’ve Got Till It’s Gone feeling during Jackson’s absence.
Sure, his finishing isn’t always up to snuff but At Least He Gets In The Positions To Score, and he looks like a bloody nightmare to play against with all that pace and power, the pointy limbs and no small amount of skullduggery. Chelsea are a different animal with him leading their line.
Harry Wilson (Fulham) – March 5th
That noise you hear is us scraping the barrel for a nice even number, because actually Fulham have been doing rather well since Wilson fractured his foot in the defeat to Manchester United at the end of January, beating Newcastle, Nottingham Forest and Wolves to make themselves worthy of a place on this list.
But the Wales international has certainly played his part this season, scoring that incredible stoppage-time brace having come off the bench to beat Brentford, as well as the late equaliser at Stamford Bridge before Rodrigo Muniz grabbed the winner.
Amadou Onana (Aston Villa) – March 8th
Forty-five goals is far too many to have conceded after 28 games if you’re a Champions League football club. Only the bottom five have shipped more and it would be fine if Unai Emery was adopting a Tottenham-style punch-for-punch mantra that may actually suit them with Marcus Rashford adding to their number of very quick and dynamic players on the break. But they’ve only scored 40 goals and the Spaniard remains obsessed with “controlling the game” despite his side’s inability to wrestle and maintain that authority over proceedings.
There’s a fair amount of dawdling at the back which definitely doesn’t help, but their issues often seem to come thanks to a lack of protection from the midfield pairing of Youri Tielemans and John McGinn. Both fine footballers on their day – we’re not sure we would ever tire of watching Tielemans stroking the ball around the place – but their influence is front-footed, and they could do with Onana to provide some real presence and steel against opposition No.10s, who often have a lovely time against them. No Villa player has more tackles and interceptions per 90 minutes (4.75).
Joelinton (Newcastle) – March 10th
We’re big fans of both Joe Willock and Lewis Miley, but Joelinton hits different. With him in a midfield three with Bruno Guimaraes and Sandro Tonali it feels like they’ve got every base covered: Guimaraes taking the ball under pressure and stroking it around; Tonali darting around the place making the difficult look absurdly simple, knitting everything together; Joelinton constantly in the face of opposition players, putting himself about and breaking the lines.
Bukayo Saka (Arsenal) – March 16th
Mikel Arteta insisted before their goalless draw with Nottingham Forest that he would give up the title race “over my dead body”, which given they’re now 13 points behind Liverpool suggests he’s also considering the possibility of them slipping out of the Champions League qualification spots seeing as fifth-placed Newcastle are ten points behind them.
Saka’s return will end all hope of what would be a truly hilarious slide into the Europa League.
Marcos Senesi (Bournemouth) – April 1st
His injury at the end of November opened up a spot in the first team for Dean Huijsen, who is now predictably wanted by literally everyone as he’s a 6ft 5, two-footed, ball-playing teenage centre-back who will have had Senesi questioning whether he would regain his place when he returns after some very impressive performances.
But Bournemouth have lost the last two and Iraola may feel that 27-year-old Senesi’s experience may hold them in good stead in the run-in, despite the excellence of 19-year-old Huijsen and 22-year-old Illya Zabarnyi in his absence.
Ferdi Kadioglu (Brighton) – April 1st
The Turkey international was something of a marquee signing in the summer, with Kadioglu dodging a bullet by joining Brighton amid big interest from Manchester United. He was instead struck down by injury early in the season and has missed the last 17 Premier League games with a poorly toe.
He suffered the boo-boo against Liverpool having scored a wonder goal to make everyone sit up and take notice in that very same game.
Rodri (Manchester City) – June 1st
You’ll notice the return date is after the end of the season, but Rodri has said he wants to feature and while Pep Guardiola will be very wary of rushing him back too soon, if City need to win games at the end of the campaign to qualify for the Champions League and ensure they’re not entirely f***ed by PSR, assuming they’ve not already been entirely f***ed by the Premier League itself, playing a 90 per cent fit Ballon d’Or winner will surely be considered a risk worth taking.
We’re also fascinated to see what sort of difference he would make this season, rather than waiting for him to return next term, when we won’t be able to tell quite so clearly after what we suspect will be quite the player overhaul whether City being a load of balls was indeed all down to his injury.
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