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Word is Jonathan dos Santos has a muscle tear in his left hamstring, and it's going to keep him out of action for a month and a half probably. Bad news. He's been a strong player for us on the right wing since becoming a regular there.
So what does Marcelino do now? One possibility is of course to go with Samu Castillejo in his place; the problem with that is Samu is not as strong defensively, and hasn't convinced Marcelino he's a 90-minute player yet. Nahuel Leiva could maybe play there, but after a strong preseason, he hasn't done much recently either.
One idea would be to move Manu Trigueros to that side. Manu has played on the wing of our 4-4-2 before, and if he moved over there, we could bring Tomas Pina into the doble pivote. Pina is a bit of a polarizing player among our fanbase, but he does offer some defensive bite that we would otherwise lose--and the key to our recent success has been our strong defense.
I'm tempted to suggest Manu-Pina-Bruno-Suarez when we play on the road (as this weekend), maybe against Levante at home we see Samu C-Manu-Bruno-Suarez. Thoughts, anyone?