Germany have different states - the state Leipzig are in requires them to quarantine but where Monchengladbach are doesn't.
He's played in a back 3 for Scotland. The problem with all our CB options right now is they all need a proper, experienced, dominant CB alongside them. If you had a VVD or Matip then you could pick any of Robertson, Phillips, Kabak, Davies, even Wijnaldum alongside them and it wouldn't be a big issue.
I actually think Phillips might have played ahead of Kabak had he been fit yesterday. Hopefully him and Davies will be fit at the weekend but there's plenty of time still for someone's leg to fall off.
This argument winds me up a little bit. We did replace Lovren but rather than replacing him with Kabak (the CB we were being linked with), we replaced him with Fabinho by signing an extra CM in the summer.
I mentioned after the game yesterday, I wonder if a back 3 is an option for us. You could even do it with Wijnaldum alongside two of Kabak, Phillips & Davies, allowing you to put Fabinho back into the holding role. Gini's role would just be as a sweeper and somebody to bring the ball out of the back.
And a very good journalist, although I did once upset him on twitter by saying he looked like a young Martin Samuel.
I'm not a doctor but there were a number of articles from physios and doctors in regards to VVD & ACL's and the general view was that better surgery and treatment these days means most players do return to 100%. I'm pretty sure I wrote something on here regarding the comments of one particular doctor who said the biggest obstacle players face now is psychological than physical - by not trusting their knee they go into challenges half hearted and as a result are more likely to pick up injuries.
To Trent's level or beyond? If it's the latter then I don't see it and it's not a slight on Foden. What Trent's already done as a RB is off the charts - he's changed how we see RB's. In years gone by a top class attacking fullback was somebody than got up the pitch a bit, smashed the odd 30 yarder in the top corner and picked up 4-5 assists. Trent's attacking output is so far ahead of anything we've seen before. He's not just getting 10+ assists and key pass numbers similar to creative midfielders but he's running games from RB.
How many top class sides across Europe in the past 10 years haven't had attack minded fullbacks? Look at the Barca, Real, Bayern, City sides of recent years, they've all had fullbacks that have been in the side for their attacking abilities more than their defensive abilities. Nobody is convincing me that Dani Alves, Marcelo, Walker etc are any better defenders than Trent, they're just not as effective as he's been going forward as he has been, nor had the same influence on the game across the 90 minutes as he does.
I'm glad you made the Marcelo point. The monster Marcelo, who is far more direct and gets in and around the box more than Trent didn't create anything like the number of chances or goals as Trent has. Not only will Trent more than double the number of assists Marcelo's picked up in his career (at 22 he already has half the number as Marcelo at 33), Trent also gets on the ball in deeper positions and has a far bigger input on the overall game. Trent is far more effective as an attacking fullback than any of the greats we've seen before and he offers much more than they do to.
So in Dani Alves peak years, most of which came in a Barca side that had 70% possession and were winning by cricket scores each week, he assisted at a lower rate than Trent? For balance, at a similar stage in Alves career to what Trent is at now (I've not gone in to too much detail, just his first 5 seasons), he'd picked up 11 assists in all comps. Trent has 40 odd.
How are the trials for the new offside law coming along? It's beyond me that IFAB aren't doing these themselves and entrusted people doing (possible imaginary) coaching courses.
It's just getting silly now.