Our injury woes continue. Ojo is out ... Cairney is 2 weeks away ... Soares is 3 weeks away from full training ... Piazon is long term. Both Kebano and.Fonte remain doubtful for this one. Hull are likely to play 4-2-3-1 with their wing men, especially Kamil Grosicki, being the main danger. With a new manager and a new, relatively young, team they are struggling to find their feet since coming down. And so far this season, rather ominously, haven't taken a point away from home. For us so far there is an element of deja vu. Last season we had the most draws of any team in the Championship and found it difficult to get wins at the Cottage. With the injuries, selection choices are obviously limited. Button was at fault for the Cardiff goal on Saturday - starting to come for the ball in his 6 yard box, stopping, going back and unbalanced when the header came in. Guess he'll stay however. Cisse, as Surlyc said, was iffy with his passes. Also he's very heavy on the turn and his tackling when it happens tends to result in a foul. Realise he needs time to adjust to the Championship but would drop him for now. Norwood? Still not convinced and would be tempted to give O'Riley a chance simply because of his creativity. But that won't happen. My inclination would to match the Hull formation and go one better even: ............................Button............... ..Fredericks....Kalas.....Ream........Odoi.. .........................McDonald... ..Graham...Johansen..Mollo..Sessegnon.. ...........................Ayite....
I agree with your back four, Cottager, but Norwood has impressed me more than he has you. I'd have our usual formation, with him in the Cairney role and either Mollo or Graham dropping out of your eleven. As I said before, I haven't seen enough of Mollo to make up my mind - and I haven't seen anything of Graham at all - so I feel unqualified to decide between them.
Agree with most of above comments, with or limited resources i would add Graham and Humpreys to the bench as they would add height and speed. As for button he appears to have improved from last year,but his positional sense and distribution needs to be improved upon. A new keeper was one of my priorities at the start of the season and I believe if we had purchased quality we would have had a few more points.
My team would be the same as that suggested by the Captain: Button Fredericks-Kalas-Ream-Odoi McDonald Mollo-Johansen-Norwood-Sessegnon Ayite I would think AK would come off the bench in the second half, probably for Mollo. Mollo needs match time to get his sharpness back, whilst AK adds some much needed directness in the back end of the game.
Well, you were right about Ojo and I was wrong so who knows Captain. Thing is I see Norwood primarily as cover for McDonald and on the pitch our Kev doesn't like sharing the DM spot. Mollo, based on Saturday, is more able to make things happen; taking players on, awareness of team mates and a wee bit of bite. Justifying my selection between the two then. Norwood will stay deep, relying on his passing ability, and potentially hinder McDonald. Mollo will commit the opposition higher up and potentially create space for others.
I claim no credit for Ojo - I hadn't seen him play then and I was just going on what my children told me about him! (mind you, he looked fantastic for the England U21s last week). As for Norwood/Cisse, it's interesting that you see Norwood that way. I see Cisse, rather than Norwood, as cover for McDonald, and Norwood as cover for Cairney. I didn't think the two of them (ON and KMcD) got in each other's way against Cardiff, and Norwood added more creativity and composure than Cisse. At the moment I think the only way I'd put Cisse ahead of Norwood is if McDonald was the absentee. Then again, I'm basing all of this on just two home games this season (Sheff Wed and Cardiff), and I don't remember Cisse playing in the first one, so it's entirely possible that I've got it wrong.
Agree about Norwood v Cisse. On all counts. We're still at odds about 'cover' roles though. For me, Norwood (plays deep and looks to forward passes for creativity) as cover for McDonald and Cisse (plays central mid and looks to forward runs for creativity) as cover for Johansen. Don't believe either truly covers for Cairney. Unfortunately Cairney has been the one injured so for now at least we don't how the one that matters, Jokanovic, sees the situation. [Although when he rested McDonald in the cup game against Bristol Rovers he played Norwood in Kev's position.]
To nights game is a must win situation, we are already 10pts behind the leaders and way down the table, this time last year we were 8th and 6 pts behind.Slavi must install in the players minds that the games are played over 90+ minutes and not 80
The man tonight is Tim Robinson. please log in to view this image We saw plenty of Robinson last season. The most recent was in April in the 1-0 win away to Rotherham; 2 were booked, Johansen for us. Before that it was a 2-0 win. This time, away to Bristol City and 3 were booked. Johansen and Ream being ours. And in November 2016 another 2-0 away win. That was the game at Griffin Park, when he booked 4; McDonald this time for us. One more was the 1-1 draw at the Cottage earlier in the season against Burton. Sure you won't need reminding about their time wasting. Robinson got round to booking 6 that night. The two for us, Sigurdsson and Jozabed, were for arguing with him. The former teacher from Middleton-on-Sea (yes, he is a Brighton fan) is certainly top of the class this season when it comes to dishing our punishment for bad behaviour. So far in 8 games, landed 24 yellows and 6 reds.
Great to get that first win at the Cottage. Again plenty of endeavour and this time some creativity but unfortunately a lack of composure at times. Such that we had the inevitable nervy nineties - don't know if it's valid to make a man only on the pitch for 5 minutes MOTM but Denis Odoi deserves it for that clearing header. Right across the team it was a strange night - excellent play interspersed with giving the ball away cheaply. Can already hear "we didn't control the situation" coming from the Gaffer. Mind it was only three worldie saves by their keeper that kept the score within their reach. Just picking on a few of ours. Button had a couple of terrific route-one kicks (noted from his hands and wonders why he doesn't do that more often for accuracy). And he was a tad unlucky with their goal, with a good first save, but why oh why didn't he come for the ball inside the 6 yard box first of all? Sessegnon had a mare at left back and that's without missing an open goal from 3 yards. McDonald was quieter than normal but had a terrific game as leader. Kebano should have been subbed much earlier - very not impressive tonight. Holding my powder on Norwood and Ojo ! Can't leave without mentioning Johansen though. For the life of me do not understand why the Gaffer persists on him taking corners. That apart, at times he was absolutely brilliant and on other occasions so sloppy with his passes. Fortunately the good far outweighed the bad and there of course was this -
Bit of a scraggy game in parts but got the win that counts. Was a bit worried when I saw Cottager's comment on the Ref giving 6 reds in 8 games but thought he was good and kept the game flowing as much as he could. Team really got the jitters when they scored but eventually played through it. We really miss a proper goal scorer. Feels good though to get a home win and hopefully is the kickstart we needed.
Very nervous about this one from the start,and and more so when we hit the 80 minute point. so a bit of nail biting at times. But the scoreline somewhat flattered Hull. My concern is still Button,definite improvement but cannot control his area,and not coming for what was a little more than a lob gave Hull their goal, My M O T M Mc Donald & Johanson RS tries to hard at times & Ojo, i think there is a lot more to come from him as the season progresses. 3 points is 3 points, and its very important in this point in time we don't lag to far from the leading pack.
Also quite pleasing is the 'goals against' column. Know two were late on and we can (as the Gaffer was) be critical of that but 5 conceded in 7 games is a pretty good improvement on last season. Might be because of injuries, especially Cairney, but the full backs seem to be holding back more and the defence (generally) playing deeper this year.