It's been mentioned before but I had to double take when I saw Livermore, I thought Hughton had travelled with the squad. We could do with a left back today :-(
In the pics, who's Nanook on the extreme left all wrapped up? I'm also shocked how tall Joe Jordan is.
Cudicini; Fredericks, Bassong, Gallas, Townsend; Falque, Carroll, Livermore, Pienaar; Defoe, Pavlyuchenko. Starting Eleven ^
Ta. Interesting to see that we've only gone with 2 defenders! I'm assuming Falque will be out of position on the wing rather than behind the strikers too. Oh well, is anyone else going to be watching this or just me?
I think that Falque and Pienaar are both more comfortable cutting inside, so hopefully we'll have a fairly compact midfield, with the width provided by our full-backs, who are both really wingers. Pavlyuchenko should spend his time dropping off and trying to link up play, leaving Defoe to test their defence by being offside all the time. Gomes had a great game in the first match against RK, so I'm a little disappointed that he's not playing.
I had a quick look to see if we're playing on a plastic pitch. Apparently they use a "Motomatic grass surface" which doesn't clear up my confusion.
As far as I can tell, it's just a grass surface that has some sort of plastic protection put over it. Presumably it's taken up when it's being used.
Harry said before that Cudicini and Gomes will be playing everyother game in Europe... and the League Cup. I think Defoe would be better off being the player to drop deep but I think we'll play them both pretty much on the shoulders of the defenders all game.
