Wednesday, April 06, 2011

Mexes injury - set back for Les Bleus

Such is life in professional sports...well all sports for that matter. Injuries. There is never a good time for an injury. The latest one suffered for Les Bleus is the torn ACL from France's sweeper - Mexes. He will miss the remainder of the AS Roma season, which means he could have also played his last game for the Rome squad (he is out of a contract and rumored to be heading to England or Milan). Mexes will also miss the upcoming matches for France. Will this be detrimental to Les Bleus? The one match of significance will be the visit to Belarus on June 3rd, otherwise he will miss 2 friendlies. Blanc and Les Bleus should be able to navigate these upcoming games without Mexes, but it is a set back. Why? It has been clear that Blanc is leaning on and building his squad around Lloris - Mexes - Rami. While this trio has looked very solid the past few games, their time together is still under 1 year. With the Euros coming up next year every game and every opportunity for this trio to work together is crucial to the long term success of Les Bleus.

In the near term, Blanc will need to figure out who to pair with Rami as central defender, both options are talented...but young: Sakho and Koscielny. Based on what Blanc did earlier I would see Sakho as the first option. Let us hope for a rapid recovery for Mexes, in the mean time Blanc will need to figure out who is the obvious second lieutenant at central back.

3 comments:

Jeff said...

I wonder how Koscielny would do. I like him for Arsenal.

GFC said...

I think he could be a solid option for Blanc, the one aspect of Sakho's game is he can sometimes be a little overly aggressive and pick up silly fouls, free kicks and even red cards. Blanc might opt for Koscielny as a player that will not take chances or make mistakes, but also does not have the aggressive upside.

Either way I think Blanc will find a way to navigate these upcoming games. Maybe he even looks at one of the friendly matches after the Belarus game to start both Sakho and Koscielny.

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