Starting eleven

Which is exactly what I was saying ................

 

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 !!

 

Whilst I agree with the sentiment of the post, the problem is, we don’t have any quality in the middle of the park which will be our downfall if we don’t improve in there.

 

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.

 

This opinion bemuses me somewhat. Its a forum to discuss all things Bradford City. We have a number of new signings and coupled with the remaining players its interesting to here what fans views are on what could be the starting eleven. If you don’t like the thread don’t read it.

 

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

 

Right now I would play Hornby - Mellor BRE POC Longridge - Ismail Akpan Anderson Scannell - Donaldson Vaughan

Definitely need a couple of central midfielders, another winger and a striker but that is better than a lot of teams in this division.

 

Don’t get me wrong there are threads that regularly get to the stage where they seem pointless. The one thing i would agree with is that the squad as it stands will more than likely change with comings and goings in the next few weeks. Until then we have no idea what the final squad will be so any discussion is pure speculation regarding certain players and positions.

 

how can we put a starting 11 when we have not seen half the squad play yet.
Those putting Reeves in the middle dream on. He's miles away from playing.

 

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

 

Reeves is still miles off

 

Reeves wasn't a CAM.. that shows how much you remember him.

 

OD
Mellor Paudie Everton Longridge
Scannell Palmer NEW CM Ismail/NEW LM
Donaldson Vaughan

 

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