One final attempt from me at the matchday thread, but if we lose this - Spanish or someone else is more than welcome to take back the reins! If the Palace game was a must-win which ended without a win, then Bournemouth at home is one we really could do with the three points. Fortunately for us, they play on Thursday evening against Spurs, so we'll be coming in a couple of days fresher. They're far from an easy side - ruthless in attack and press high up the pitch. Kerkez at left back is an attacking threat who will fancy running at a depleted right back position for Town. Senesi is one of those centre-backs comfortable pushing up and creating chances. Their midfield spine is solid. Then you've got some talented attacking players with potential - Kluivert, David Brooks, and the erratic, unpredictable quality of Evanilson up front. For us, there weren't many positives to take from the Palace defeat - but O'Shea is looking comfortable at this level and Morsy and Cajuste are a midfield partnership that works. As I said on the other thread, we can't hang our attacking hopes on Delap and Hutchinson when they're doubled up and the service is lacking. Broadhead has shown a few glimpses to warrant a start ahead of the struggling Jack Clarke. Burns is not looking up to it at this level, so move Hutchinson over and hope he makes the most of extra space. Szmodics - somehow not involved at all against Palace - is long overdue a start in his natural position at number 10. With the players available, what's your starting eleven for this one? GK: Muric RB: Johnson (hopefully) CB: O'Shea CB: Burgess LB: Davis CM: Morsy CM: Cajuste RM: Hutchinson AM: Szmodics LM: Broadhead CF: Delap. This could go either way. If we're fired up and score early, we should be fine. But it's getting hard to see where the next win is coming from - I'm going for an entertaining 1-1 draw.
Agree with yr line-up, given the circs and who is available. A long overdue win, tails up after a blistering, aggressive start, an early goal, and all the positive vibes return. 2-1 Town SD in his nice warm seat next to Ed Sheeran, proves to be an outstanding sports journo and entertains us all with a brilliant write-up!
Hopefully they’ll be ironic cries. I don’t think McKenna’s the issue. If anything, he’s been a victim of his back-to-back promotion success. Even if we do go down, I’d like to think we’d give him at least one year in the Championship to get us back up. That’s assuming another club doesn’t come in for him.
McKenna will know what needs sorting out, and will have learnt much from that last inept display. I trust him to make the right selections, like drop poor Burns, choose the best players for this game, above all have players in their favoured position. He will know how to motivate them and get the crowd behind the team. After all the positivity about our strong performances, despite losing or drawing in such fine margins, I am hopeful we can kickstart the season against a knackered bunch of cherries!
I watched the Bournemouth game last night. If they had their shooting boots on it could have been 5 nil. Spurs we're very poor though.
Town 1-5 Bournemouth, we ain't good enough at the moment, some very clever Jan signings are desperately needed!!
I like this team, Taylor deserves his start, but sorry for Cajuste. Pleased for Burgess too. Lets get that 1st goal boys.
