When is Sinclair back?

The first great team I saw was the Utd team of the early 2000s and its always made me believe that if you're to play 4-4-2 you have one flying winger (Giggs) and one more technical player who gives consistent delivery, links well with the fallback and can drop in to the centre to solidify things if necessary (Beckham).

I was dubious of him at first, but Monkhouse has become an integral part of the team. As well as the above he offers us height, goals and leadership qualities. I don't think its a coincidence that results and performances have generally been better when we've had a 'flyer'on the otherside, be that LDV,Dawson or Gosling.

Sinclair isnt that player and I can't see how he could just slot into that position. Whilst he's always given his all ive never seen him have a particularly effective game from a wide position.

On paper a diamond formation could work with Mansell holding, Lines and Sinclair centrally and Monkhouse behind the front two, but im dubious that of the many formations DC has experimented with to date none have worked as well as a traditional, flat 4-4-2.

I think its academic anyway as I can't see Sincs being risked before the end of the season. Running is one thing,but the twisting and turning his game requires ia going to require strength in his knee. As important as the next (hopefully) 3 games are I don't think its worth risking his long term recovery when he could have a whole summer to get stronger. Also as much as I'm a massive fan of SS I dont think hes a player who can play at 75% and be effective it really is all or nothing.

This.  Sometimes there's a view that fitness is a binary thing; a player is either fit enough to play or not.  This really isn't true - fitness is a continuum and it can take a month for a player to get back to the same level of energy from injuries like this especially if they haven't been able to train.  Not to mention the psychological aspect of an injury like that on a player like Sinclair who is quite physical.  He has to be comfortable with that level of physical contact again in order to be fully effective - some players struggle with that.  It's only human nature to be a bit tentative if you've had a nasty joint injury, a lot of it is subconscious.  If that's a big part of your game then that can be a problem - I remember Byron Anthony saying it took him ages after his first nasty ankle injury before he went into tackles fully confident again.  Upshot is I doubt we'll be seeing much of Sinclair - just an addition to the bench.

It annoys me when people go 'why did he put x on the bench when he's clearly better than the player in front of him', most of the time it's because that player is not fit enough to last anything like 90 minutes.  I've known a few physios at they tend to say that most players are carrying some kind of injury most of the time but obviously clubs don't disclose this if they can help it.