Who Should Replace Le Dreamboat....

Vuckic

 

Injurys and the fact that we've normally been overcrowed with center mids

 

Hughton was reluctant to play young players and since Pardew arrived there have just never been injuries to players in his position (plus he was injured himself a few times).

 

Kuqi.

 

What a man.

 

I'd like to see vuckic come in personally but i have a dreadful fear of pards playing smith and telling tiote to push up....

I see vuckic as having good on the ball ability but hes canny tenacious and gets himself about when out of possesion. he can also score goals too. i just worry about who's going to take the set plays assuming raylor aint going to be playing and cabaye out. which ever youngster is the best at dead balls for corners in my opinion. santon could maybe do it?

 

for the record if it was up to me i'd go on the attack playing 4-3-3

krul

simmo/perch (willoif fit)/colo/santon

obertan/tiote/jonas

best/ba/ben arfa

ben arfa could drop back inside of jonas when out of possesion

 

Either you're playing Jonas and Obertan at CM which would work at all, or you're playing them out wide and only one CM in Tiote? That would leave us without another defensive presence as all our creative and attacking playing will be high up the pitch, so we'll be exposed.

 

Ben Arfa.

Not only our wingers Obertan & Gutierrez are A Faulty Production Line, Only Wigan and Swansea currently spend less possession in the opposition's half than Nufc.

 

Would definitely have a wet sponge at RM instead of Obertan, so would be happy to see HBA there, not that Pardew will mind.

 

All the above except smith.

 

Jonas' dog will do for me.

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We could go with the Barca of last season formation with the midfield triangle and the two wingers playing virtually up there with the striker in a sort of winger come inside forward role. e.g.:

Busquets
Xavi Iniesta
Pedro Villa Messi​

Barca often swapped Villa and Messi around.

but with us:

Tiote
Vuckic Abeid
BenArfa Ba Gutierrez​

Or possibly this:

Tiote
Vuckic Jonas
Ba Best BenArfa​

Or possibly this:

Tiote
BenArfa Abeid
Ba Best Gutierrez​

With this defence on all 3 options:

Krul
Simpson Perch Coloccini Santon​

I would love to see either of these and I reckon we could make it work.



When we have everyone fit I'd love to see:

Krul
Simpson Saylor Coloccini Santon
Tiote
Cabaye BenArfa
Marveaux Ba Gutierrez​

or

Krul
Simpson Saylor Coloccini Santon
Tiote
Cabaye Guthrie
BenArfa Ba Gutierrez*​

in that barca formation. *or Marveaux.

When we need to go more defensive we could flip that midfield triangle as well and have:

Tiote Cabaye
BenArfa​

or

Tiote Cabaye
Guthrie​

or

Tiote Guthrie
Cabaye​

Apologies for over doing the formation porn but I really like this formation and I think we are perfectly suited to it.

 

So many options!

To answer the set-piece queston: I would have Santon on corners, Tiote on deep free-kicks, Ben Arfa on shooting free-kicks. Sorted.