We all assumed that our starting central midfield pairing would be McKenna and Evans, that might well still be the case, but having seen a revitalised Cairney this week, who'd be tempted to start him in the middle? I'm assuming that Evans will start, so it's between McKenna and Cairney. There's obviously an element of risk, as neither are defensive midfielders and it's likely to pin Evans back, but we now seem to have a squad capable of playing nice flowing football, I wonder if we might now consider simply outplaying teams?
Cairney and Mckenna for me, Cairney is looking like one of the good surprises of pre-season. Evans has been a bit flat, wouldn't go as far to say dire as the chap on another thread said though.
koren and cairney, all out attack id start cairney. id start koren in the centre with stewart and brady on the wings when theyre fit, theyd support fryatt enough. cairneys our best goal threat from midfield other than koren in my opinion, although evans has the knack of getting in the right place at the right time.
Koren was stupidly effective out wide yesterday though. He was given more license to go forward and was able to come and float into the centre. I wouldn't play him centrally as he'd have to start to get back and play deeper. Cairney and Mckenna for me. Especially after yesterday.
evans awesome in both non-league friendlies. With regard to the Cairneyquestion, i think it will be horses for courses. The midfield looked comforable in the first half formation so for Blackpool and Macclesfield -Cairney/Evans seems favourite to start. However, Leeds and Ipswich will different propositions!
id put evans down the right, he made his debut there at reading, and scored...and dont think hes got the killer pass to play centre midfield... still wouldnt bet against mckenna/harper tho myself
Nobody wants Harper then! - I didn't even realise he was playing yesterday until i saw the replay on sky.
Cairney and Evans. Koren and Brady on the wings. People talk about Cairney being slow, but in his position he does not need to be fast. He is simply there to distribute the ball and let Evans play his usual box to box role.
I think Cairney and Evans would work well with McKenna sitting behind them looking after the back 4. Cairney to spread the ball around and Evans doing the leg work...
Defining moment for NP for me. Cairney and Evans work really well together. Evans gets up and down well and TC controls the game. Perfect. Midget Mckenna will huff and puff and point a lot like Harper. Yep OLm we can outplay teams now is NP brave enough?
Why does the Koren debate keep coming up? He keeps showing us time and time again that he is best out wide with goals like yesterday's, and people still pop up suggesting he should play CM all the time. Cairney has looked good, I haven't really formed an opinion on McKenna yet. I thought Evans wasn't up to much last season but something tells me he is going to be a lot better this season, don't know why but I can just see it. I wouldn't complain about any 2 of those 3 playing, but if it's Harper again I might cry.
Counting Koren, this hopefully means Harper is our 5th choice CM... Cairney and Evans for me with Koren ut wide, at least until Stewart's back
i really think pearson should consider changing formation. id like to see a 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 formation that a few other ppl on here have suggested too. 4-2-3-1 rosenior hobbs chester dudgeon _____cairney mckenna simpson____koren___brady __________fryatt 4-3-3 rosenior hobbs chester dudgeon ____cairney koren mckenna __simpson___fryatt___brady we now have enough quality in the centre of midfield & on the wings to try a more attacking formation. with 4-4-2 we're stuck with 2 midfielders which isnt really ideal when we've got the likes of cairney, harper, evans, mckenna, koren all pushing for a place.
Both of those lineups use the same 11 players, 4 of which are defenders, 4 are midfielders and 2 are strikers. Surely that alone suggests you should use 442. You've shoe-horned them into different systems but if it means having Simpson on the wing, what's the point?
I ruled him out, purely because I think he's nailed on to be play the right wing, whatever his preferences are, it suits us to play him there.
What about Rosenior,mcshane,hobbs,chester,dudgeon ---------harper-------mckenna------- ---------------evans---------------- ---------Adebola------Fryatt--------
