African Nations Cup

toffeestillidie · November 14, 2007

Sorry if this is a dupe, but I couldn't find any main thread discussing this...

what should our lineup be now that we're going to have Yakubu, Anichebe, Pienaar, and Yobo all missing.

I'm thinking

howard (obviously)

Neville - no clue - Lescott - Valente

Arteta - Carsley - Cahill - Osman

Johnson - Vaughan/Faddy

sub in Jags or Baines (if he's healthy) or graves for strikers as needed if we wanna keep with the 451. i'm still worried about what we're going to do for that other centre back spot, is Stubbs healthy? maybe jags should play there since apparently he can play anywhere.

Ct jr. · November 14, 2007

lescott will play with stubbs in the centre, since baines is already training he should take the left side of midfield, and maybe give jags a shot at RB for some games.

bluesb1970 · November 14, 2007

Howard
Neville-Jags-Lescott-Baines
Arteta-Osman-Carsley-McFadden
Cahill
Johnson/Vaughan

TX Bill · November 14, 2007

toffeestillidie said:
Sorry if this is a dupe, but I couldn't find any main thread discussing this...

what should our lineup be now that we're going to have Yakubu, Anichebe, Pienaar, and Yobo all missing.

I'm thinking

howard (obviously)

Neville - no clue - Lescott - Valente

Arteta - Carsley - Cahill - Osman

Johnson - Vaughan/Faddy

sub in Jags or Baines (if he's healthy) or graves for strikers as needed if we wanna keep with the 451. i'm still worried about what we're going to do for that other centre back spot, is Stubbs healthy? maybe jags should play there since apparently he can play anywhere.

Stubbs in for "no clue" and you've got it. Bench would be: Hibbert, Gravesen, Jagielka, Faddy, Turner.

Namdrater · November 15, 2007

January transfer window as well, so if we're short on numbers due to injuries as well, we could possibly fill the gaps.

Either Jags or Stubbs at cb

Bruce Wayne · November 15, 2007

Just goes to show that we have decent strength in depth at the moment to enable us to lose four first team regulars and still be able to field a decent side. Who knows, VDM and Da Silva might even get a game. Maybe.

Pblueman · November 15, 2007

Bruce Wayne said:
Just goes to show that we have decent strength in depth at the moment to enable us to lose four first team regulars and still be able to field a decent side. Who knows, VDM and Da Silva might even get a game. Maybe.

Have to agree bruce. its so nice to finally lose players out to international commitments AND not be too worried about the squad coping!! (y)

Sim · November 15, 2007

Pblueman said:
Have to agree bruce. its so nice to finally lose players out to international commitments AND not be too worried about the squad coping!!

Next we'll be doing a "Benitez" and dropping Arteta just for the sake of rotation! :lol:

Yeah its great to see us finally having options.

TheDevils2001 · November 15, 2007

toffeestillidie said:
Sorry if this is a dupe, but I couldn't find any main thread discussing this...

what should our lineup be now that we're going to have Yakubu, Anichebe, Pienaar, and Yobo all missing.

I'm thinking

howard (obviously)

Neville - no clue - Lescott - Valente

Arteta - Carsley - Cahill - Osman

Johnson - Vaughan/Faddy

sub in Jags or Baines (if he's healthy) or graves for strikers as needed if we wanna keep with the 451. i'm still worried about what we're going to do for that other centre back spot, is Stubbs healthy? maybe jags should play there since apparently he can play anywhere.

You are really assuming there was no injuries happening but with the fixtures list in December and January, I did say we are lucky if we only have 2~3 injuries and not mention there is a chance some of them out for 4~6 weeks!

Even assuming we have no injuries we still need a Left or Right Midfielder while Pienaar is away and possibly CB cover while Yobo away, although this one could be on-loan but we did need to get a new CB and CM if right person comes up in January can't expect Stubbs & Carsley to be around forever!

We did just about manage with 3 main Striker if injure free during those 3 weeks!

Bruce Wayne · November 15, 2007

Well in a worst case scenario, Graveson and possibly Da Silva are both experienced pros that can play in the centre of midfield. VDM can play on the flanks. We've shown that we are adept at playing five in midfield, and even with four, Lukas could always step up as he's certainly no less experienced than Anichebe and Vaughan when they made their debuts.

That's not to say reinforcements wouldn't be nice, just that we could cope without stretching to untried kids.

TheDevils2001 · November 15, 2007

Bruce Wayne said:
Well in a worst case scenario, Graveson and possibly Da Silva are both experienced pros that can play in the centre of midfield. VDM can play on the flanks. We've shown that we are adept at playing five in midfield, and even with four, Lukas could always step up as he's certainly no less experienced than Anichebe and Vaughan when they made their debuts.

That's not to say reinforcements wouldn't be nice, just that we could cope without stretching to untried kids.

i do have faith in those player to perform when there chance comes, but when January and we are in good position and if we are thinking finishing in the highest possible position we going to need some new player to improve our strength and depth as we going to replace stubbs and Carsley pretty soon!

I feel our worries is more in the Midfield department and a little bit on defence rather than Striker's, we all know we have striker's who could score alot of goals but the problem is creating chance for them!

We are quite lucky to have Arteta, Cahill & Osman who could score some goals from midfield but we going to need more people like Arteta who could create chance and scorer like Cahill in our team!

chicoazul · November 15, 2007

Valente left back, Baines left mid, Arteta right mid. Jagielka CB as thats his best position.

toffeestillidie · November 16, 2007

TheDevils2001 said:
You are really assuming there was no injuries happening but with the fixtures list in December and January, I did say we are lucky if we only have 2~3 injuries and not mention there is a chance some of them out for 4~6 weeks!

Even assuming we have no injuries we still need a Left or Right Midfielder while Pienaar is away and possibly CB cover while Yobo away, although this one could be on-loan but we did need to get a new CB and CM if right person comes up in January can't expect Stubbs & Carsley to be around forever!

We did just about manage with 3 main Striker if injure free during those 3 weeks!

mate its just a guess i'm not going to leave out players in my prediction in the off chance that they get injured.

that's actually why i left bainesy out of my lineup even though i definitely believe he deserves a starting nod, because he's injured right now and these things take time so i don't want him played too soon. we can't afford to take any injury hits at striker, which is why i'm already dismissing all these bids for faddy as rubbish, we're not selling him to leave us with 2 strikers, both of whom have recently had injury problems, as our only options for the entire month.

if baines is healthy to play midfield, since we're already a bit short on strikers, call me loony but i'd like to see osman play some striker, he's one of the best shooters on our team so why not right?

for midfield i think we're okay with gravesen and carsley ready to move in if there's injury, plus we can always play faddy back there if we need too. also i'm kind of looking at jags as an everywhere man here, since he seems to be able to perform adequately anywhere i've seen him (including goal), so i feel we can use him as a general spot filler if we're absolutely drained of options.

if we're already in a good place to move through to the uefa cup, i'm lookin forward to seeing some of the really young players we bought this summer play, the ones with unpronounceable names, jus to give them a shot and some professional experience.

CanadaToffee · November 16, 2007

One positive is that the schedule has been quote kind to us during the ACN, no really tough PL games.

toffeestillidie · November 16, 2007

CanadaToffee said:
One positive is that the schedule has been quote kind to us during the ACN, no really tough PL games.

hate to be the eternal cynic, but i don't see that as a huge positive. i mean we have blackburn and reading, who we struggled against earlier this season. tottenham aren't great, but because of that we absolutely need to take points off of them. my point is, these games are winnable, thus we have to win them to have a good campaign, unlike games against top teams which losses in aren't a huge deal, or games against the bottommost of the bottom feeders that are almost gauranteed wins for us.

i'd almost prefer we had all of our games against the big 4 away during this spell, just because we probably wouldn't take too many points off them anyways. these games are games we could probably win with a full strength squad, but with missing players we might struggle, which will hurt us more in the long run than losses to big 4 clubs who noone expected us to upset anyways, and who having a full squad against might not even help.

think about last season when we played young vaughan up front alone against chelsea, he was class and i doubt we would have faired much better had we had more players available.

so yea, i think its actually rather unfortunate that we have somewhat competitive games, but must win games during a time when our squad will be stretched thin.