Hello! We're here for another Preview- and this time we're headed up to the Reebok (or Macron- or whatever its called now) to face Neil Lennon's Bolton. We're headed into a run of 6 games in 22 days- and as my title suggests rotation will be key over this run- and with respect to Bolton we can afford to rotate to an extent against them; at least in comparison the run of games we have coming up in the near future with Wolves (A), Derby (H), Watford (A) and Bournemouth (H) in a row coming up- and if we were to pick up no points in that run depending on other results we could end up in the Relegation Battle.
I'm not going to suggest wholesale changes, but I think we have some areas where we can afford to rotate and still remain in the same ballpark with regard to quality. Unfortunately- as far as I can tell Kit hasn't had a Press Conference in preparation for the game tomorrow; so I'm going to be taking a stab in the dark with regard to some selections.
Of course Bettinelli will continue in goal- seeing the Cotterill goal from a "TV" angle it was essentially a perfect free-kick, at the game I thought Bettinelli should have done better- but seeing it on the Football League Show set me right; so Bettinelli had a near perfect game from my revised perspective.
The defence should remain largely the same- I think Richards needs a run of games to properly hit his stride; I think his initial Loan Deal runs out between the Ipswich and Millwall games so we need to give him all the games possible to get an accurate representation on him- and decided whether to extend the deal to the end of the season or not. If you've been reading these for a while you'll know I'm a huge fan of Bodurov- and I think he more than deserves a rest given he's put in the highest number of minutes out of everyone in the squad as a far I can remember. This'd mean bringing Dan Burn back in the team- he hasn't been seen since he was ripped to shreds by Watford roughly 2 Month ago, but he is still a good defender and the combination of Hutchinson and Burn should have enough about them to cope with varied threats Bolton pose. Stafylidis should continue of course- with Amorebieta's fitness still not entirely there as far as I can tell, which basically makes Stafylidis our only proper option for Left-Back as it stands- and I'd argue that even when Amorebieta is fit he should be seen as a Centre-Back.
When I said Stafylidis is our only real option as it stands for Left-Back some of you may have been preparing angry tweets saying "Sean Kavanagh"- but I (and it seems Kit) see Kavanagh as more of a Midfielder judging from where he's played under Kit. I remember seeing something about him needing stitches in his knee- but off the top of my head that was after the Wolves replay, so you have to assume he's had the stitches out and is at least close to full fitness; so I'd be bringing him into the midfield tomorrow. I always work on the assumption we'll be playing the diamond until Kit starts playing another formation so the other two for the midfield three will be interesting for us tomorrow. The midfielder sitting in front of the back 4 is a position we don't really have an ideal fit for- I think Hoogland is the closest we have, but once again I'm not sure what his fitness situation is- as I'm not sure of Parker's. So for the time being I'll assume they're still injured, this means we have Fofana, Tunnicliffe, Christensen and Kacaniklic to fill two spots. Christensen looked a bit off the pace in the Birmingham game- so I'd give him a 30 Minute sub appearance tomorrow, I think we just need to ease him back in rather than throwing him in at the deep end. Tunnicliffe it seems is Kit's choice to play the "Parker" role and I'd have Kacaniklic fill the other spot- being the one who's subbed off for Christensen after roughly 60 Minutes.
The player to fill the #10 Role has hilariously got another twist to it- with the news Bryan Ruiz's proposed transfer to Levante has fallen through (albeit with an appeal still to come) so although Bryan presumably won't be available until the appeal is sorted out the mental image of Bryan getting ready to play against the likes of Real Madrid- with trips to Millwall and Huddersfield still to come for us will get you through some cold nights. Anyway although I'd strongly oppose it on 9 occasions out of 10 I'd have McCormack in the #10 Role tomorrow- just because of the lack of options given I think Kacaniklic should be in the Midfield Three with Christensen's doubtful performance against Birmingham.
Hugo should of course continue up front- he's now gotten 2 from his last 2, and we need to keep playing him to (hopefully) continue his goalscoring run and keep his confidence up. Of course this'll mean Woodrow coming in and especially against a team with good, strong Centre-Backs like Matt Mills and Dervite (who I hope monopolises the Long Shots tomorrow) Woodrow will give us another threat during the game.
I'd give a few "fringe" players a spot on the bench tomorrow- because we might as well give them some experience of being with the matchday squad such as Adam Taggart who depending on how the games going I'd give a cameo appearance.
Team for Bolton
Bettinelli
Richards, Hutchinson, Burn, Stafylidis
Kacaniklic, Tunnicliffe, Kavanagh
McCormack
Rodallega Woodrow
We should be aiming for at the minimum 1 win from the next 2 games given Ipswich's recent bad run of form (they'll thrash Sheff. Wednesday now I've said that). I quoted 46 points in my last blog- but I think we should probably aim for the 50-55 point mark just to be fully secure in the division; that'll mean getting 15-20 Points from 17 Games- which as I've said previously if we can't achieve we deserve to go down.
Thanks for reading as always, tomorrow's team selection will be really interesting from my Point of View because it'll give us a look at how ambitious Kit is in my opinion- if we play a full strength team in the next 3 against Bolton, Ipswich and Millwall it is Kit indirectly saying he doesn't expect us to get much from the 4 following against Wolves, Derby, Watford and Bournemouth. Anyway- thats for tomorrow, and lets hope we're coming away from the Reebok (or Macron- or whatever its called) with something to cheer about.
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