Most liked posts in thread: Starting eleven

No, look again what I said.

 

“Look at it again”? No thanks. It was boring and pointless the first time

 

Unduly pessimistic

 

Why is that, Park ?

Midfield is central (no pun intended) to both attack and defence, and is obviously City's Achilles heel, as things stand.

MOST were rightfully cautious, late July last year. ON PAPER - City made some 'decent' signings, but many of us saw the imbalance, and a few holes. This year is no different, but still have plenty of time to resolve that.

 

I do agree we need a central midfielder and a left sided player and I am sure they will arrive in due course but I think the players we ha e signed should give us cause for optimism

 

READ (carefully) your post again;

From your post ............ City WILL have about 12 / 13 players of good to decent quality.
And YOU suggest I'm overestimating ? LOL !!

 

This looks about right to me. It looks strong enough up front but I don't see us having the necessary defensive protection unless A.o'C plays the midfield position he played for Aberdeen against some stronger opponents (and we know Bowyer likes height) . You could then have Akpan or Atkinson either playing in Reeves' place (or Reeves in A. o'C's for some smaller opponents?) or any coming on as subs to change things a bit. But will it be this formation?

Bowyer has played 5-3-2, 4-1-4-1 and 4-3-3. I think he has even played 4-4-2 but I doubt we'll see that much. The great news is that I think you could probably play all of those with these 15 players - which gives us plenty of options to change without lots more signings. I think Bowyer will mix and match formations to suit opponents - unless we get lucky and look consistently strong enough playing one of them that we just don't worry about opposition.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we have enough first team players to do the business and all we need is one or two players for cover. If we get Robinson back, we could be nearly where we want to be at until we get a few games played and review.

 

Fair enough. No offence intended. Just seemed a little premature to me.

 

Bowyer likes Mellor. Wouldn't surprise to see him start as a right-sided CB next to Paudie, should Bowyer want to shoehorn both Mellor and Henley into the same side.

Sounds like Henley had plenty of talent but was denied gametime in America, so not sure if he'll start at RB until he's back up to speed. Hopefully he gets a good pre-season under his belt.

 

If he is getting picked for pre season friendlies will probably be a good indication. But as you say, wouldn’t have thought it was imminent

 

Did it have to be for the first game of the season, or what we would like to see over the season?

 

So if the season started tomorrow (assuming we set up as a 433 and everyone is fit), surely we look something like:

O'Donnell
Mellor Paudie BRE Longridge
Palmer Akpan
Gibson
Donaldson Vaughan Scannell

We're still not quite there for me. Would like Akpan to be replaced and think we can do better than Gibson/Shay (however I would love one of them to prove me wrong).

 

What about Reeves instead of Gibson? He impressed against LPool. But would still have Reeves over him in CAM

 

I'd take Anthony Grant in the middle who's been forced to train with the youth team at Shrewsbury.

 

Well speaking to him he wants to play further forward this year, slipping balls through the middle and long range shooting so nice snide comment...

 

And if you read his post, he said if all were fit? NEXTTT

 

But replied to a post saying "if the season started tomorrow"

 

Yes, if the season started tomorrow with all players fit? Your point is...

 

Got to prove his fitness first.

I don't think he has the right to say where he wants to play at this minute.

 

@bantamJS - not sure if you would want to comment on here or if you feel it is appropriate but did you get any idea of where he is in terms of a comeback?