5) A starting berth for Fernando Llorente
Between them, Sunderland and Swansea have been involved in three six-pointers in their past five matches and now they go toe-to-toe. Having bought himself some wriggle-room with three wins in Sunderland’s past four games, David Moyes will be the more relaxed of the two managers, while Bob Bradley continues to have no end of problems demanding his attention in both defence and attack. While there may have been perfectly valid reasons for his omission, the Swansea manager’s decision not to start Fernando Llorente against Tottenham Hotspur last week seemed odd considering the Spaniard’s heroics off the bench against Crystal Palace the previous week. As well as scoring twice and creating a third in an astonishing win, his presence as a hold-up man provided a welcome outlet for Swansea’s under-pressure defenders when hacking the ball long to clear their lines. The presence of a proper centre forward up front for Swansea would also enable Swansea’s stand-out player this season, Gylfi Sigurdsson, to play deeper in an area of the field where he might prove even more effective. Figuring out who to drop and where to put the attack-minded midfielder Leroy Fer in such a scenario are other puzzles that need to be solved, but we’ll leave them to Bob because he gets paid the big bucks. BG |  |
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