Wycombe Wanderers - Saturday August 25th

He's only 5'11" but such a large upper body when he jumps he's bound to be a problem, even if he doesn't win the ball, as you say he'll be a big test in more ways than one.
The group of us who went down to the Northampton play off final couldn't believe Aidy Boothroyd had left him out in preference to Clive Platt.

 

[QUOTE="Ricc, post: 89508, member: 409"]Nah Bruenker is rubbish - no point playing him - he doesn't have the quality required.

Tuesday was better, but a better side than Burton would have beaten us, we need to improve. luckily Wycombe are also quite rubbish. that's what we need. to play rubbish teams every week, give us a chance of getting some points on the board.

the defence needs to up its game, quite badly - Chicksen has been poor, Reilly looks positively dangerous, and not in the good way, McGowan hasn't really performed this season, I know he was injured and that but he needs to be up to speed - at the moment I'm not sure if the 3 games he did play last season was a true indication of how good he is or a false dawn.

Wright and Akpan need to impose themselves on the game, and we need to learn to supply Doyle with better balls to him.[/QUOTE]

Utter ball axe, Ricc ...........
Has Bruenker played just one minute, so far ?
Also ................ When your leading goal scorer (Payne) is out scoring your whole forward line, how can you object to something different ?

If the 'Beast' can do it for others ............... Why can't Kai do it for us ?

An' I don't want a sarcastic or shit reply, OK ?

 

Utter ball axe, Ricc ...........
Has Bruenker played just one minute, so far ?
Also ................ When your leading goal scorer (Payne) is out scoring your whole forward line, how can you object to something different ?

If the 'Beast' can do it for others ............... Why can't Kai do it for us ?

An' I don't want a sarcastic or shit reply, OK ? [/QUOTE]

I think it's a fair reply @RonnieBrown apart from the utter ball axe, so unlike you mate .
IMO Tuesday night would have been an ideal time to give Kai 20 minutes, Gibson did very little in his 20 minute cameo, lost the ball on several occasions that could have cost us dearly, where as we knew we were struggling keeping the ball up top.

 

It’s almost like we’ve forgot the loan market is still open

 

With our recent defensive misgivings that is our Achilles, the two headers at Southend being an example.

 

Centre midfield options = Akpan, Wright, Reeves, Devine, Hudson, Colville and O'Connor
Up front options = Doyle, Miller, Jones, Bruenker, Patrick, Gibson, Robinson
Attacking midfield options = Scannell, Gibson, Seedorf, Payne, Robinson, Riley, Patrick, Colville

That's 18 players for a maximum of 6 positions, several of whom can play in across multiple positions.

If you're looking at playing a 442 and want senior cover upfront then yes, you'd be looking at 1 extra forward with maybe another one coming in until January if Jones is likely to be out for much longer. However, the days of us being a rigid 442 and having 22 man squad with 2 players to cover each dedicated position are long gone, that approach stopped when Parky left so we've already had a couple of years to get used to it, these days the squad is about versatility.

It's also worth remembering that our long term strategy is to develop young players and bring them in to the first team, we can't do that if they never get chance to play.

 

They played with a front three the other night and Akinfenwa was on the bench.

 

Reeves and Devine are injured and out for a chunk of time. Hudson isn't a centre midfielder. O'Connor is obviously first choice centre back. Colville is a young lad.

So, we are short of centre midfield options.

 

Still not convinced Mr Rahic, by the way just how is Parky going on now a days ?.

 

Add Jones to the injury list, take Robinson out of the equation due to him being suspended and we are also short of options upfront. Particularly when you consider two of the remaining options are Patrick and Brunker.

 

No disrespect to w w but I hoped I'd never see the beast a v p again

 

I live in Wycombe and went to a couple of games last season. “Experienced” is what i’d call the forward line but Mckail-Smith and Nathan Tyson are still quick. CB’s and CM were workman like, effort but no real craft. Place to get at them is between CB and full backs; saw Stanley stuff them 4-0 and they over-loaded the left back with a lot of success (2 goals) and it took Wycombe 1/2 hour to respond with more support from left mid.

 

Why's that @Booeybantam, we'll see far better than Adebayo Akinfenwa before the end of the season.

 

I know that, but we might as well have Hanson back at least he knows what to do. Somebody mentioned Proctor wouldn’t be opposed to him as a short term solution either. However, long term we need a really good physical striker who can really punish defenders in this league.

 

I just meant I thought we'd have clawed our way up a division by now . He's not been here for 2 or 3 years now

 

Agree it was a surprise, but Davies and Rory always seemed to have the better of him when we played against him. Maybe aidy saw this and wanted to try something different.

 

Yep he certainly did we well and truly kick butt that first 35 minutes .

 

The only way I can see us getting another striker in is if Jones is nowhere near coming back and we go for an upgrade on Kai (i.e. a big experienced lad) who's not too bothered about spending a bit of time on the bench. If we go for a "guaranteed starter" then we'd be looking at having to play 2 up front in every game otherwise it'd be virtually impossible to keep our existing loanees around the matchday squad, let alone our young lads that we're meant to be developing and I can't see our manager wanting to limit his tactical options to having to play a front 2 in every match.