With Alvaro Morata unavailable for the trip to face Cagliari tomorrow, Paulo Fonseca has confirmed that Francesco Camarda will get the nod.
Morata’s injury in training yesterday certainly complicated the plans, but the thinking was that Fonseca would be fine picking from the strikers available. Many believed Tammy Abraham, Luka Jovic or maybe even Noah Okafor would get the nod, but the coach has other plans.
Fonseca spoke in his pre-match press conference at Milanello today and he was asked a couple of different questions about who will start up front in Sardinia, confirming that it will be Camarda.
Will Tammy Abraham play tomorrow?
“I can tell you right away because you’ll know after half an hour (laughs). Camarda will play tomorrow.”
Why Camarda? Is he excited? Can you explain the choice?
“For me it’s not surprising. He works with us every day. I think everyone at the club believes in him a lot, he works well and understands the role well. For me players have no age, they have quality. And he shows every day that he has quality.
“Morata has a very specific role at the moment. Morata is not always a striker, but many times he is a player who unlocks passing lanes. I think Camarda is more ready than Abraham to play this role at the moment. And I have to say that Abraham is not completely well but he is better.
“I have total faith in Camarda. He trained very well. He is the age he is, but he has great maturity. He is brave, he works hard for the team defensively. Yesterday we had this problem with Morata. I didn’t have a single doubt about who should play tomorrow.”
The 16-year-old has become somewhat of a mainstay in the senior squad in recent weeks, receiving several first team call-ups whilst also having some minutes for the Futuro side. Getting a first start at 16 years, 7 months and 27 days can only be good in the grand scheme.
Lamine Yamal followed the same path.
Minutes with Barca B, and call ups to the first team.
I see no issues with this.
Yamal plays wide and has max two opponents around him as opposed to a CF where there could be 4 or even 5 opponents around him. Waaaay different. But luckily Camarda has already shown he can do surprisingly well against grown men.
I don’t agree with this but Fonseca should know what he is doing and seeing in training. He should gradually give Camarda minutes but to start him in an important game since we are falling behind in the table and need to get points to catch up is not a good idea in my opinion.
Abraham should start if Morata is unavailable.
I think he is referring to the fact that Camarda is more naturally dropping down and participates in the play than Tammy does hence why he is more adopted to take the current role of Morata.
Anyways it should be interesting to see how it pans out and hopefully he can get his first goal for us in the process.
Perfect game for him to start..
Very good.
Happy about this. Still annoyed about the penalty debacle. Plus Tammy can’t finish.
I was going to miss tomorrow’s game to meet friends but now they will have to wait!
A bold and good decision finally.