I think last night showed how vital he is to the team and how vital he is to the system. After he went off we tried originally to play the 4-4-2 and it was abysmal, it just didn't work, Mckenna and Cairney didn't link the attack and defence well enough and left the front two even more isolated than the front one was. Koren provides that link from defence to attack at times, and gives the system some fluidity. I hope last night spelt the end of anyone suggesting a 4-4-2 would work for this side. Also i just hope Koren is fit for Saturday and the rest of the season or i would start to worry.
442 works well if there's a target man. Unfortunately for us neither Fryatt or Mclean can be described as one of them. It's not just that though, you've got to get bodies up in support for the target men/ strikers, which we didn't do that well at all in the second half, because we were always well marshalled by Southampton's midfielders and defenders. Roko will be a massive miss if it's confirmed he's out.
No chance for this Saturday according to the HDM. I wouldn't be surprised if he missed the next four games but what do I know?
Exactly, we don't have the squad to play it. We have strikers who don't hold it to well, and we don't have a player who has the pace or engine to get box to box. Was it Hamstring? If so sounds about right, huge miss.
yeah i agree RoKo is a good asset when he wants to be but i think if he is injured for lesta we should go with brady in the holding role as he played very well there in the fa cup v ipswich
Hamstring indeed. I've seen a few negative posts creeping in recently about Koren which, IMO, were ridiculous. Let's see how we do without him in the next week( at least) or so.
I'd be tempted to play Cairney in the Koren role, he's got the skill to play a killer pass, he can strike a ball well and he's less likely to play the ball backwards if he's that far up the pitch.
I hear what you are saying, but I think he wants too much time on the ball in that position. Koren is much quicker in his movement, his thinking and his getting a shot off. I had a semi debate with Al Jaxon on this recently and I have to admit, although I see Cairneys abilities, I see his short-coming more clearly.
I said on another thread I can't see this happening. He's a playmaker but that doesn't necessarily mean he would be suited to playing further up the pitch. You rarely see that sort of player in behind the striker these days, it's normally someone with more movement and dribbling like Koren or Brady, than someone who is just a ball-player as Cairney is. I think he's best left where he played the other night. Brady should replace Koren for me, he's shown glimpses of being able to do a job there before and in certain ways he could be better at it than Koren. He won't offersuch a goal threat from long distance like Koren does but his dribbling and pace will give us something different in the middle. As for the OP, I'm not sure what your point is, the game hardly changed when Koren went off and we changed systems. Both halves we played well overall but lacked quality in their box, while they had that quality and got one goal in each half. Mannone Rosenior Chester Hobbs Dawson* McKenna Cairney King Brady Stewart Fryatt I've gone with Stewart simply because playing against Leicester and NP might spur him on a bit, and there aren't many other options with Brady playing in the middle. *We all know I'd prefer Dudgeon starting but I've been saying that since mid-November and it really isn't going to happen.
Nick's considering Simpson for the Koren role, along with Brady or Stewart(no mention of Cairney), I can't see him actually giving it to Simpson. Koren's definitely out for Saturday, probably for Tuesday night too, he's having a scan this afternoon to asses the damage.
I wouldn't like to see Stewart there. He always tries to cut into that space lately and it never works. He has all the necessary skills to play there but just gets crowded out where Koren would find the space better.
