Bruno Fernandes is the obvious Man United choice. Who would be the worst to be Van Dijk-ed?
Bruno Fernandes Man Utd
Liverpool coped pretty well without their spine on Wednesday night, but it’s not ideal. So, who are the irreplaceables at the rest of the Premier League? And who’s the next worst Liverpool option to suffer a misfortune?
Arsenal – Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
Aubameyang’s extraordinary Arsenal numbers exist in a curious state whereby they are simultaneously a touch underappreciated yet also weirdly and unnecessarily overblown. The underappreciation perhaps comes from those goals coming in an Arsenal side that has been a bit shoddy – which if anything makes it odder – but seems to rely on the fact that everyone just assumed he would come to Arsenal and simply continue his scoring rate from the Bundesliga. Given how often high-profile strikers have demonstrably failed such a transition, Aubameyang’s achievements deserve greater fanfare. On the other hand, there’s also this bizarre fondness for the media to insist that you can just strip out his goals, look at the results such a move would leave in its wake, and then declare Arsenal would be relegated without him. We’re pretty confident that they would have picked someone else had Aubameyang not been available. They wouldn’t have just played with 10. They would definitely have been much sh*tter, though, so in he goes.
Though playing him on the wing is sub-optimal. Continue reading