Injuries will inevitably influence Jol's team selection tomorrow - Hughes and Etuhu (thigh strain) are definitely out and Hangeland has been ill. However the game against Man City may be taxing Jol even more. He is apparently considering holding Bobby and Senderos back. Nonetheless he is also said to be keen on sticking with the same basic format and senior team members seen recently. The line up looks like - ----------------------Schwartzer----------------- ----Briggs------Baird----Hangeland---------Riise -------Dempsey---Murphy---Sidwell------Duff ----------------Dembele--Johnson------ Taking a risk that Hangeland will recover and playing Baird on the strenghth of his display in the away game against Dnpro.
That looks like a good team until you get to the front 2. Not sure where the goals are going to come from. I'm not sure what to expect from Twente but they're obviously a much better team than anyone we've played in Europe so far and whilst a 0-0 draw would be by no means a disaster I think we'll need to score to avoid defeat.
I'd happily take a draw tonight. With Twente the top seeds in the group, anything from them is good. I'd be very sad to see our unbeaten home European record go - it's nice to have something like that to drop into conversation with supporters of the bigger clubs. Cottager, where did you hear that Jol is considering leaving out Bobby and Senderos? If that's the case, I would imagine it might mean our first glimpse of Orlando Sa up front rather than AJ and Dembele. Even without Sa, I'd like to see Dempsey up front and Dembele on the wing rather than vice versa. Grygera is in with a shout at right back as well, I would have thought.
nice that we have these sort of choices now - the squad has definitely improved in my opinion. I'd also like to have a look at the Ginger Gecko at some stage - but I guess that might be against one of the other two euro league opponents.
Jol's 'chat' with the Ealing Gazette. "Zamora will be rested for the visit of Manchester City to Craven Cottage on Sunday and Bryan Ruiz, the £10.6m striker signed from Twente, is cup-tied. But Jol said that Andy Johnson, who should start, is the club's only genuine goal poacher. "If you play Moussa Dembélé he is not the sort of player to attack the near post – he is like a low [positioned] No10. It's easier for Andy Johnson because he is a high 10." Senderos is not actually injured but "just not 100%". He may play Grygera with Hangeland instead of Baird but the back four I suggested is apparently his preferred one.
Thanks for the clarification, Cottager. Strangely, the Ealing Gazette doesn't make it as far down as Bournemouth!
I like the mentions of Sa and the other newbies. Would be really good to see at least one of them. Counting down the hours until I'm off to the Cottage....
Interesting. Not much confidence ahead of tonight's game, either from us or Jol. I confess, given our recent form, I'm not all that encouraged either. But I'm guessing we'll need seven points to get out of our group, so the boys better put in a good performance tonight and get something.
If the seedings are to be believed, us and Twente are the two strongest teams in the group. If that's the case then whoever wins tonight will have taken a huge step towards qualifying; equally, both teams will be happy to avoid defeat. As I've said above, I'd settle for a draw but I fancy us to get at least that. How much of that is based on blind optimism rather than cold, hard logic I wouldn't like to say, but I think we'll come away with something. Sadly, I'm not going, but at least I can watch this one from the comfort of my tv-facing sofa rather than on a computer screen in the alcove under the stairs!
Haha yes indeed Cap, no dodgy streams cutting out on us tonight! (Just have to convince the Mrs that Eastenders is repeated at 10pm on BBC3)
