Mason and Kaboul availible,Fazio,Lamela and Vlad still out,and Chadi misses following a family bereavement,for tomorrow
Great to have Mason back. Missed his energy in midfield. My condolences to Nacer and his family for the loss of his father, terrible shame. Hope the club gives him as much time off as he needs.
Chadli Hope we go very strong for this game and try and finish it at the lane My team would be Lloris Walker Dier Verts Davies Stambouli Capoue* Townsend Eriksen Dembele** Kane * SU will be very physical so these two sitting letting the front 4 to get on with it! ** much prefer Dembele in a more advanced position
That’s a good lineup, Hengy. I agree with you about Dembele. I see Pochettino having a big choice to make between playing an all first string, or nearly all first string team, or continuing his rotation policy. Most fans will want the former, I think. He’ll certainly be more open to criticism is he doesn’t field his strongest possible team in a cup semifinal. But I’d rather he continue his rotation policy. Paulinho got a goal and three assists in his last 90 minutes or so. Surely he deserves a start, especially as a glaring weakness last game was getting men into the box at the right times, which is the thing he may be best at. Walker’s been a brilliant player for us, but since coming back from a long term injury, I’m not sure he’s playing better than Chiriches. Kane vs. Soldado is a tough one. I think we’ll see Kane since both started last game, but Soldado had a couple of assists as well. I like Dembele as LM. On the other hand, Rose was very good there in our last cup game. To me, the rotated side is just about as likely as the first team to get the multi-goal win we want. If they can’t get it done, and subbing in Eriksen late doesn’t do the trick, we can play the first choice in the second game. They beat an admittedly weakened Burnley by a couple last time out, while the first team barely squeaked by Sunderland. The first team is better, no doubt, against the best, attacking teams. But I’m not so sure Paulinho, especially, isn’t the choice against a team that’s going to clog. One player I would like to see is Mason, since he gets the ball forward fastest of our deeper lying players. (edit) Almost forgot about Ade. If Pochettino really sticks to his guns, he’ll give Ade a start. But that’s a little too much rotation for me, thank you very much.
I don't think we should play a formation that matches Sheffield in physicality. I think we should just continue to play a similar side that we have done all season, which is a mix of speed, strength and flair. We're at The Lane, the opposition should be worried about dealing with us rather than us adopting a similar style to them. In the away leg I can understand going a bit more sturdy and robust but while at home, on our turf and in front of our fans, I think playing "our way" is pivotal. With Nacer on leave and Lamela still out, a pacey duo of Townsend and Lennon on the wings should cause a lot of problems for a lower league side. I'd go with: Lloris, Walker, Dier, Vertonghen, Davies Stambouli, Paulinho Lennon, Eriksen, Townsend Kane Have the likes of Mason, Dembele, Rose, Yedlin on the bench, with the latter two to bring on if more pace is required and the first two to maybe help shore things up later on if we can build a comfortable lead. I'm probably being too overly confident tonight, which is usually a bad thing, I never go into games thinking we have a right to beat the opposition but I do feel that our quality and standard should see off The Blades, despite their very impressive form in the Cup.
I'd rather have Pauly in the attacking role than Dembele. Pauly has goals and he did well at the end of Sunderland and against Burnley. However, even more so i'd have Towny on the left and Lennon on the right (is Lennon fit?). I don't see that happening though Edit - SOS's team. That
Can not see lennon playing ( or even being in the squad ). I'm a fan of Capoue underrated as a passer of the ball and got a decent shot on him as burnley found out! I'd rather play very strong tonight and slightly weaker at the weekend tbh
Do we really need two DMs? SU will sit back and try to take a 0-0 or even a 1-0 Spurs win back to BL. We can expect two banks of four which we will have to break down. Therefore I would play either a 442 or 4132 or 4141. Strangely I would play Ade and Soldado-If they can't score against a division 1 side (no disrespect but...) then they should be out the door.
i think we need at least 1 DM. The DM allows the full backs to go forward. They'll sit back but if you think they won't try and hit us on the break then i think you're mistaken Without the DM we'd either have to leave the full backs back which would be even less attacking.
Stambouli likes to push on a press higher up than a normal DM + as the post above put Sitting CMs allow walker to push forward and after watch SU Saturday they like to counter down the wings.
I agree. They will try to put the ball over the top towards Campbell-Ryce---very dangerous player, surprised he never made it at a higher level.
He played on the right on Saturday this is why I hope Davies plays as Rose will leave space behind. Tbh he looked very average vs MK Dons and missed a great 1 on 1
I have seen Sheffield United play this season and had assumed Clough would be dignified on the touch line. He has a decent reputation in the game and always comes across in interviews as a pretty level headed and polite man. Boy, was I wrong. He and his sidekick Morgan both behaved like a couple of prats. Both were constantly in the ear of the fourth official and Morgan in particular, seemed to want to have a fight with anyone who even looked at him. Clough never stopped moaning all game and sarcastically applauded the ref when he correctly booked a Sheffield player. I was really disappointed in him.
Not a surprise in the case of Chris Morgan, given his playing career mainly consisted of elbows, squaring up to opponents, getting sent off and fracturing opponents' skulls.
Thete is a lot of disbelief up outside the ground about that...either the act of a genius or of a man having a breakdown
