Don’t count Vrsaljko out yet.
Šime Vrsaljko received 90 valuable minutes on the pitch Tuesday night in Atletico Madrid’s 1st leg quarterfinal versus Manchester City and definitely held his own. City would squeak by with a 1-0 victory after Kevin de Bruyne finally broke the deadlock in the 70th minute. To no one’s surprise, Atletico Madrid and manager, Diego Simeone, looked to be playing a defensive counter attack 3-5-2 formation with Vrsaljko on the right wing. It appeared Atletico would have been happy with a 0-0 result heading back home next week. The plan almost worked as it took City over an hour to score. Atletico held the ball for 33% of the match and only managed two shots on goal.
IntoThe Calderon.com gave Vrsaljko a 6.5/10 grade as he “Much like Felipe, Vrsaljko had a point to prove and he proved it. Defensively solid throughout, Raheem Sterling couldn’t get anything out of him when he drifted wide and Vrsaljko did an excellent job standing his ground on the right without being caught out at all. Jack Grealish couldn’t find a way past him either, and the ball almost always ended up going back where it came from when City tried to attack down Vrsaljko’s flank.”
Vrsaljko healthy is a starter for me against strong teams when he need defense i am happy with juranovic as well always good to have 2 good options same with lb sosa barisic and if bradaric can wake up not bad.
The irony of Sime’s constant injury woes is that he’s actually “fresher” than other guys with all his time off…dead legs are certainly a thing for those who have played.
@maminjo, I dont think juranovic at RW is good enough. Maybe closing out a game we are already winning. I understand that it would be nice to have everyone in a natural position. But our biggest problem in my opinion, and has been for a long time, is scoring goals. We need as much firepower/creativity in the team as possible. Lovro majer I think plays there. I’d happily see brekalo, ivanusec, vlasic, orsic there…even rebic, pjaca…..even krama. Even perisic with one of the others on the left. Even sucic
Why not consider robert muric?
If he can stay healthy, that would be a huge boost.
If…………… I’m not going to hold my breath. I hear you’ll die if you do that for too long🤣
If Vrsaljko can come back to us 100%, then he starts at RB.
Juranovic, if he’s still having a great season, can be pushed up to RW.
It would be nice to see how the two of them work together if they’re both fit and available for UNL…
and also rotate that RW position to see how Majer and Orsic work in that role (since they offer more creativity and scoring than Juranovic).
But it would be nice to finally have both a proper RB and RW playing at the same time (to almost match the quality we have at LB/LW).
We would finally be fundamentally sound on both the left and right sides, with proper wingers and fullbacks playing (all of them good players, in their right roles).
Great performance against elite competition. A healthy Vrsaljko is definitely our best right back option. The guy is the goods. Has everything you want in a defender, experience, tenacity, swagger, footballing intelligence, quick, great crosses, would sacrifice anything for the checkers…but the best thing could very well be, the last 4 years of constant setbacks and hardships…that will really give a guy motivation to show he’s not dead yet!
If he keeps playing like he did today, he’s a guaranteed starter in my book.
Bog i Hrvati
Agree with you 100% if he is fit and playing regularly than he needs to be in our starting 11.
you better know who Jesus is …….
because it’s far more imporatant than Vrsaljko! {I}
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed5bFf3v-PU
Dude lay off the Jesus and ask for more god of halilovic
Agreed
He was huge in Russia
I think most of us thought the sime ship had sailed
So many injuries and seemed to be really unfit last summer
The back line of Sosa gvardiol dcc/lovren I guess if we have to and vrsaljko can be one of our best back lines going into a tourney
Gvardiol rated number 4 U21 player In Europe
By November he will be one of the better rated defenders in the world if he keeps progressing
If we can get proper service from the wings and somehow get proper finishing we got this mates
Sosa is a little less reliable defensively but he has Perisic and gvardiol to help. So let him do his thing.
Vrsaljko since being more solid
Than juranovic can cover for whoever is on the rw to really create(majer, brekalo, orsic)