Lloris Walker Dawson Caulker Vertonghen Parker Holtby Dembele Sigurdsson Dempsey Adebayor Width from the full-backs, Holtby in a creative central role, Dempsey, Sigurdsson and Dembele in the positions that they were dangerous in last season... I don't know. I'm just making suggestions, as that performance was absolutely shocking.
We'll have to wait and see what the prognosis is on Lennon, especially. But I think that Holtby needs a chance to play through the middle, too. I'm assuming that Bale is out for the foreseeable future.
I would shuffle that slightly PNP Lloris Walker-Dawson-Caulker-Verts Parker-Holtby Dempsey-Dembele-Sig Ade Give Holtby and Dembele the chance to swap if need be. I think Dembele is wasted in the wider positions though personally.
I understand that and agree to some extent, but everyone else that we've played down the right in Lennon's absence has been awful. Might even be worth trying Walker ahead of Naughton, as we're getting that desperate. Hopefully Kaboul can get a couple of games for the U21s under his belt and give us another option at full-back, too.
The problem is that we've got three players who have been effective down the middle in Gylfi, Dembele and Holtby. I don't want Dembele out of the center because I think he's our strongest leader. Gylfi's the only one this year who's looked any good at all on either side (aside from Lennon). So I think we have to keep him on the left, and pick the best attacking fullbacks we have to give us width. Start Holtby at CM and let him take turns with Dembele going forward. I'm still tempted to stick Holtby on the right and hope that Gylfi can keep his recent scoring run going from the center (he scored two screamers for Iceland in the internationals.).
No Bale until City then. Thank ****, Chelsea beat United so our game got pushed back. Anyway, I hope we line up with: Lloris Walker, Dawson, Vertonghen, Benny Parker, Dembele Lennon, Holtby, Sigurdsson Ade I'm not overly concerned at the moment as I'm confident others can step up. The defence does concern me though, even Dawson was pants last night so we need to get back to our excellent defensive displays that saw us go on such a good run of results, without that we're going to continue picking up poor results.
Sigurdsson looks like he could even play as a striker if needs be. Might be worth a try at the moment. Could he do any worse than what we've got?
completely agree. Sig has really impressed me recently, and deserves a lot of credit for working his arse off to prove the critics (me included) wrong. We're starting to see the player we saw prior to joining us. He's stepped up in recent games, and he's scored some vital goals. - Good ones too. Hopefully this'll add to his confidence and we'll see him shine towards the end of the season.
Naughton actually played on the left in a surprising number of our cleansheets. I don't think it's a case of just the personnel being right but cutting out the numerous lapses we've seen across our defence in recent games.
Drop Ade! 4-2-4 Unconventional (and I know it won't happen) A couple of seasons back Everton played without a striker and Cahill was getting the goals. In theory we have got midfielders who can score.
I think Houltby has been used as a striker at times for Shalke,when he was there,and Debele was in Holland
No idea, but I wouldn't have thought so. Spurs seem to prefer not to say anything about stuff like this, for some reason.
i think we need Benny at full back now we have no natural wingers. All our width will have to come from Walker and Benny. I know Benny got a roasting last night but he's experienced enough to know this is a different game. I've suggested a few times that we could use Walker to replace Lennon. At least that way the rest of the team could play in a similar way to normal (where similar way is NOT how they played against Inter/Basel/Fulham, lol). Assuming Lennon is out I would go: Lloris Naughton Dawson Verts Benny Parker Dembele Walker Holtby Siggy Academy player/log/knob of butter/toddler/chocolate teapot/etc
