442 tonight

I have a feeling we will start 442 tonight. I imagine with Henderson up front Orient will either play long balls up to him or try to get the ball wide to get crosses in for him. Either way can't imagine the ball will spend an awful lot of time on the deck in the centre circle. This means our extra man in midfield is wasted.

If we go 442 it allows Waring/Winnall to defend from the front and give their centre backs as little time as possible to play a decent ball forward for Henderson to fight for and will make it easier for the ball to stick up front rather than coming straight back at us. Every team we have played so far had a plan A of getting the ball down and we have had to be very solid through the middle and the pressing game has worked very well. Not sure the pressing game (in midfield) will be as effective tonight if the ball is constantly in the air missing out the midfield.

On that note I have even thought about M'Voto coming in to look after Henderson? Don't get me wrong Nyatanga has been fantastic most of the season, but Henderson is a little different to most strikers we come up against.

 

I agree that 4-4-2 is probably the way forward tonight. Drop Lalkovic for Winnall and push Hourihane out wide.

I think Cranie and Nyatanga are more than capable of dealing with Henderson.

 

Henderson tonight.... John Stead, Bradford.
Not our ideal opposite numbers are they.

 

Not a chance Nyatanga will be dropped. Could see Winnall getting a start though, but maybe deeper in the hole.

 

There's your problem.. Hourihane is ***** wide, you may as well drop Hourihane and play Lalkovic or even Jennings.

 

Only way you get Hourihane and Winnall into a 442 with any degree of success is to put Scowen out wide. Not especially keen to do that. Hourihane not an option out there for me.

Think we will stick with 451 with winnall coming on again.

 

Scowen is more important to the side than Hourihane, without question so I'd say if either it'd be Hourihane pushed out wide. However, looking at the two sides, we have much the better players of the two sides and IMO we should let them worry about what our extra man in midfield can do to them rather than the other way round.


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Scowen out wide. Winnall up top.


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Not until he starts scoring and/or creating regularly he's not. This is not to say Scowen is not important too by the way. I also seem to recall that you were one of those giving Hourihane the biggest kicking a few weeks ago. Or perhaps I'm mistaken.

 

Although I agree that Hourihane out wide is not ideal, he is worth a place somewhere on the pitch simply for his set piece delivery. It could be the match winner tonight.

 

Would rather play Winnall on the wing in a 451 if we've got to get them both in the team, rather than have Hourihane wide left.

 

Scowen left, O'Sullivan Right, Hourihane and Pearson in the middle?

I normally don't like Hourihane centre of a midfield 4, but don't expect them to be too good through the middle of midfield so he should be fine tonight.

 

And then you can just drop Hourihane after getting a goal and 2 assists? I think its a good problem though

 

Still am, I'd drop him. Not good enough for me. However, my point was that before Scowen and Pearson came into the midfield we were lightweight and had no tenacity in there and got overran everyweek, so I'd definitely still say scowen is more important to our side than Hourihane.


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While your point about Scowen/Pearson adding tenacity to our central midfield is very valid, that is not the end of the discussion. Different palyers offer different things. Hourihane happens to offer goals and assists. Some might argue that is more important that tenacity. Yes we would all love both.

 

But its been tried and tested before those two came in that Hourihane isnt upto playing in a 2 man midfield. Why change those two in the centre of the park who have been, for me, the reason of our upturn just to accomodate someone who has shown he's not upto it in that position?


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'Not good enough for me'

37 appearances in the league
12 goals out of our total of 47 - 25%
10 assists - 29% of total

54% of all our goals have come from Conor's left boot or arse. Let him do a f.cking crossword by the corner flag for all I'm arsed - first name on the team sheet.

 

Yeah but other than that what has Conor done for us?

 

He must have more assists than that. He's got 10 assists just from corners, christ knows how many from free kicks.

 

Just a quick Google mate - seems to be League stats only.