Team to Survive

[Rossiter]

3 hours ago, nnfox said:

At last!  A thread created that hasn't written off the season.  We still have 8 games and it's very close down at the bottom.  It is still possible that we stay up!

 

Yes, we have players that posses the talent to stay up - that's not in doubt, but they do need to quickly change their mindset and find an extra 10% effort individually.

 

                       Iverson

Ricardo     Evans      Souttar     Kristiansen

                        Mendy

            Tete   Maddison Barnes

               Kel         Daka

 

Praet, Youri and Faes all important subs.

 

'We have players that possess the talent to stay up - that's not in doubt'. Surely it must be in doubt. We are 19th. We have a few with the ability just not enough imo.

[Motty]

Palace,Bournemouth,Everton,Leeds,

[scarthin]

Forget combinations of players. The first thing has to be to pick the team least likely to give soft goals away with defensive errors. The opposition does not have to commit men forward and leave space for our attack if they can just wait for a crass mistake at the back. And our attack think why should they put the effort in if it’s all about to be undone with a stupid mistake by the defence. I’d argue this was obvious given the last few games.

[coolhandfox]

Only chance is getting Youri and Evans fit.

[Stuntman_Mike]

We only survive with Youri back and Nacho starting. 

[NasPb]

41 minutes ago, scarthin said:

Forget combinations of players. The first thing has to be to pick the team least likely to give soft goals away with defensive errors. The opposition does not have to commit men forward and leave space for our attack if they can just wait for a crass mistake at the back. And our attack think why should they put the effort in if it’s all about to be undone with a stupid mistake by the defence. I’d argue this was obvious given the last few games.

This 

 

 

And above all, picking players who will fight for the badge. In our situation the intangibles are more important than the tangible aspect imo. 

[Ian S]

Lot of teams selected have Barnes in, not heard the extent of his injury but didn’t look great on Saturday so would guess he might be out for a few weeks.

[foxinsocks]

I watched arsenal and liverpool play yesterday - when arsenal were on top in the first half it is clear thatthey play balls very quickly in to 50:50 spaces  for maronelli or saka (they win about 70% of these as the defenders are back peddling.)

 

On Saturday - Madders was making a 35yard backpass when things went wrong.  This is a legacy of Rodgersball.  WE should be move the ball quickly in to midfield and if we cant pass thru then putting it in to the spaces at the back - not going backwards.  Clearly Stowell and sadler are persisting with rodgersball.

 

[volpeazzurro]

1 hour ago, Pliskin said:

It’s worked previously. Kelechi went on his best run using this formation.

 

Ricardo has proven to be one of the better players recently, and we have to start playing with two attackers as we just isolate the one…….something has to change, 4-2-3-1 and 4-3-3 isn’t working. 

I absolutely agree about Ricardo but he's nearly always been poor in an advanced role. I don't necessarily think that it's those formations that aren't working, more who Rodgers and now Dumb and Dumber have picked to play in them and the roles they've been given. There's more than one way to play a 433 for example, like Liverpool or even Madrid have done so differently to each other in the past.

[fazzyfox]

It’s also about what we shouldn’t do, Vardy, Amartey and Soumare should not start a single game, waste of a shirt whether just anonymous or bomb scare detrimental.

 

If we can squeeze some life out of Evans and Tielemans and have some CF presence of any kind unlike the first 60 mins on Saturday we’ll be significantly better, but is that good enough? 
 

The conundrum is wanting 2 up top or 3 CBs without losing Barnes, the finishing formation if you can call it that on Saturday was vulnerable but knowing Bournemouth were sitting in by then, don’t know if you can be so open vs Man City, Newcastle and Liverpool but maybe the others, Nacho & Daka up front, Barnes on left, Madders on right, Youri with either Wilf or Mendy in midfield. If Evans is one of the CB’s it could work, if not we’ll be wide open but may as well go out fighting rather than backward passing. Might need to tell the fullbacks to “Stay at home”  more (literally in the case of Bertrand).

 

Rafa’s more likely to try to get an early goal then switch to a triple DM pivot and soak up pressure by suffocating the space. Roll up roll up just £60 a ticket but if it kept us up then I’d take 90 mins of root canal dentistry.

Edited 10 April 2023 by fazzyfox

[Genesis1]

It's actually heartbraking that we could have played Evans and Soyunchu against Bournemouth.

 

I just don't understand if thousands of people can see Kel is our best striker, Mendy has earned a contract extension, Soyunchu is our best centre back and Tete is our only natural right winger, why do 3 people see the complete opposite.

 

The season isn't over yet and I think if we keep Amarty, Vardy and Soumare away from the first team we may just scrape it.

[Muzzy_no7]

6 hours ago, nnfox said:

At last!  A thread created that hasn't written off the season.  We still have 8 games and it's very close down at the bottom.  It is still possible that we stay up!

 

Yes, we have players that posses the talent to stay up - that's not in doubt, but they do need to quickly change their mindset and find an extra 10% effort individually.

 

                       Iverson

Ricardo     Evans      Souttar     Kristiansen

                        Mendy

            Tete   Maddison Barnes

               Kel         Daka

 

Praet, Youri and Faes all important subs.

 

One midfielder? 

[Muzzy_no7]

What’s quite clear is we need to go for it. Lone striker isn’t working, no matter whether that’s with a double pivot or single.

 

For me now it has to be two up top and quite frankly Vardy is done, I hate to say it but he is absolutely done. To think we have another 9 million contract to pay him is very scary. He’d be better off going to play for Sheff Wed for a season now and then hang up his boots.

 

4-2-4/4-2-2-2 or 3-4-1-2 now.

 

Iverson

Ricardo

Evans

Souttar

VK

 

Mendy

Ndidi/Youri

 

Barnes

Maddison

 

Kelechi

Daka

—————

Iverson

 

Evans

Souttar

Faes

 

Ricardo

Mendy

Ndidi/Youri

VK

 

Maddison

 

Kelechi

Daka/Barnes

 

 

 

[Old Fox]

We need a bloody miracle but minimum is a manager who will take no prisoners - some of the issues in the squad need sorting now and to have any chance they have 10 days to sort it as Saturday can be used as a warm up game - no chance we get anything other than a tanking!

[Manley Farrington-Brown]

This is based couple of assumptions - 1) that Barnes is fit, and 2) that Tielemans and Evans aren't.

 

Well: the team to stay up has to have Maddison and Barnes in it, and Daka & Iheanacho. There's the attacking side of it, and that's the easy bit.

Barnes is the only one of them I'd want playing predominantly wide, so we might need three centre backs so that Kristiansen on one side and Ricky P/Castagne on the other can get forward. The only way to do that without having Amartey on the pitch is Souttar, Faes and Soyuncu. And before anyone says 'so-and-so is rubbish in a three, or on the left...' etc - I'm not having it. All three are internationals who have been playing professional football for years; they can cope with stuff like that.

Ok, I know this only leaves room for one CDM - who might have to be Mendy, purely on the grounds that he's the least likely to make a catastophic mistake - but you can't have everything, and if you can defend and score goals, how much midfield do you really need??

[KansasFox]

6 hours ago, nnfox said:

No, of course I don't think we'll get anything at Man City, I haven't completely lost my mind!

 

However, what I would say is that currently our goal difference is more favourable than a few of the teams around us.  We do need to protect it and a damage limitation exercise should be the order of the day against Man City.  If we can come away with a 1 or 2 goal defeat, that's not necessarily a terrible result in the grand scheme of things.

 

If we give up before we kick off it's not out of the realms of possibilty that we could lose 10-0 or something like that.  That would completely wipe out our goal difference advantage, which could prove crucial come the end of the season.

I think the Leeds Palace game showed leeds are fragile too. I think if we got above them and Forest there is a real chance they crumble and we stay above them.

[LeePhilpottsBaldSpot]

                       Iversen

       Souttar Faes Soyuncu 

    Pereira Mendy Praet Castagne

     Maddison                 Barnes

                    Iheanacho

Edited 10 April 2023 by LeePhilpottsBaldSpot