With our new acquisitions and players coming back from international duty / injury...what do people think is going to be Rafa's game plan in terms of line up/formation. I have a funny feeling he may go for something along the lines of this, maybe swapping out a couple of the MF 3 depending on the opposition :- Kenedy and Ki i think will be the players rotated a lot making use of the only bit of reasonable depth we appear to have in the squad in Shelvey, Ritchie, Perez and Diame. The back 5 picks itself for me and we have reasonable cover now in Dummett, Lascelles and Clarke and Manpillow if we're ****ing desparate. Sadly due to work permits (Almiron) and injury (Ki) we won't see the above this week at least but to me that looks like a pretty decent line up like. When you look at our remaining fixtures, I'd be very surprised if we went down now in all honesty :- Spurs (a) Wolves (a) Huddersfield (h) Burnley (h) West Ham (a) Everton (h) Bournemouth (a) Arsenal (a) Crystal Palace (h) Leicester (a) Southampton (h) Brighton (a) Liverpool (h) Fulham (a) If we can pick up 12-15 points from our home games from that lot I'll be happy. Our away form has been far better than our home form although things are starting to improve on that front thankfully. 7 or 8 points from our next 4 games would be great and put us on 31/32 points. I think we'll be ok now. That win on Tues night was like a free 3 points, very similar to the 3 points we took of Man Utd last season when Dubravka made his debut round about the same time last season. It's given us a bit more to look forward to if nothing else.
going down is now quite unlikely. Due to goal difference, Cardiff need six points to overtake us. The are averaging .75 points per game. If they keep that up, it should take them 8 games to get to 25 points. If we pickup any points from the games below, they will still be behind us: Spurs (a) Wolves (a) Huddersfield (h) Burnley (h) West Ham (a) Everton (h) Bournemouth (a) Arsenal (a) Crystal Palace (h)
Have a feeling Barreca might be another Rafa duffer, but we'll see. Gives options. I think we'll start with the same 5-2-3, Almiron left of Rondon, Perez right. We may revert to 4-2-3-1, with Kenedy, Almiron and Ritchie.
No way he'll drop Perez and it'll be quite some time before he plays either bereccs or Almiron. Unlike the idiot on the street he's wise enough to bleed players into the team because it takes time and he's not stupid enough to make other players unhappy in the group..
Lascelles has been our best defender since the turn of the year and our captain so it will be him and 2 from schar lejeune and fernandez imo. Yedlin and Ritchie as wing backs until barecca gets adjusted to the squad. Longstaff will probably become a squad player unfortunately, as he has been great since he came into the team. Ki Shelvey and Diame in the middle with almiron and rondon up top.
5-2-2-1 -------------------Dubruvka---------------- Yedlin-Schar-Lacselles-Lejuene-Dummett ---------------Diame-Longstaff---------------- ------------Perez----------Almiron-------------- -------------------Rondon------------------------ Bench of Woodman, Fernandez, Barecca, Ki, Shelvey, Ritchie, Muto Leaves you: Elliot, Darlow, Manquillo, Clark, Hayden, Atsu, Kenedy, Joselu if needed.
Depends who we are playing,could see this formation one day 9-1 -------------------Dubruvka---------------- Yedlin-Schar-Lacselles-Lejuene-Dummett Manquillo-Clark-Fernandez-Barecca -------------------Rondon------------------------
I think that's the team that will line up this week against Spurs - only concern is that Ritchie while he's doing a a job for us back there does seem to get a bit lost at LB and is prone to a mistake back there would rather push him on a bit maybe in place of Perez. Also no point breaking a transfer record to have Almiron on the bench instead of Atsu...
Think we might see more of Shelvey now. If Almiron turns out to be a decent no 10 they could work well together.
Well two options for me but reverting to a back 4 would be my choice in the main (solely to get the best from Kenedy and Almiron who I believe to be where our talent lies) Dubravka Yedlin Lejeune Schar Dummett Shelvey Ki Ritchie Almiron Kenedy Rondon SUBS: Woodman, Lascelles, Barreca, Longstaff, Diame, Perez, Muto. NOT SELECTED: Darlow, Fernandez, Clark, Manquillo, Joselu, Atsu My back 5 would be: Dubravka Yedlin Lascelles Lejeune Schar Barreca Longstaff Ki Shelvey Almiron Rondon SUBS: Woodman, Lascelles, Kenedy, Ritchie, Diame, Perez, Muto.
If he's fit I personally think you can't leave Richie out in our situation. He's always up for the battle and has enough quality on the bqll to deserve his place.
