Hello! I know this is a lot to take in all in one day. If you've been following my Deadline Day blog- thanks, if you're not and you're interested in it here's a link http://t.co/BKERItYfxg. Anyway we're here for the Sunderland Replay, and I genuinely think we've got a good shout at meeting Bradford at Valley Parade in just under 2 Weeks time.
We're sandwiched between Burnley this past Saturday and Swansea this coming weekend for Sunderland- so Gus Poyet's team selection will be really interesting for the game tomorrow, as presumably his main target is survival- with a Cup Run as a bonus. On the other hand we're comfortably mid-table and have a 1 Million to 1 shot of making the Top 6, and unless we really capitulate we won't be in the 3 Bottom spots either. As such we can fully go for it tomorrow- and I hope it pays off.
Of course Bettinelli will continue in goal for us tomorrow, he's probably going to be busy again tomorrow. I'm not sure if Defoe is likely to play given his lack of game time before a few weeks ago- but even if he doesn't Sunderland still have good enough strikers to cause us problems with players like Fletcher and Wickham.
Jazz Richards is of course ineligible for the game today- and to the absolute best of my knowledge Amorebieta and Hoogland aren't fit yet. This makes the defence a pretty straightforward selection, and we'll be going back to the 4 which has served us reasonably well before we changed it to incorporate Richards on Saturday. I think most of the eyes will be on Grimmer for this game, Grimmer vs Richards will be one of the debates to be had over the next month and potentially beyond if we extend him to the end of the season as we did with Fofana. Sometimes it frustrates me when people make sweeping judgements on players based on one game, or highlights packages- because I've seen some people complaining that Bodurov isn't good enough. While he isn't going to set the world alight- for the level we're at he's near perfect, and while McCormack was our high-profile signing in the Summer you could still make the argument that Bodurov in terms of value for money is our signing of the season.
Scott Parker is ill according to Kit, so that makes what I thought was going to be a tricky midfield selection pretty straightforward. When everyone's fit- and assuming we stick to the diamond we have 4 Midfielders who will be expecting to start nearly every game fighting it out for 3 Midfield Spots. I still think in an everyone fit scenario Tim Hoogland should be played in midfield as an enforcer type midfield- which'll add even more to the debate, but that is for when he's fit- which I can only assume is soon(ish). However for now, the midfield selection is pretty straightforward with really only 3 proper options. I still maintain we've seen the best out of Fofana when he's been in the midfield with Christensen so I hope that'll continue tomorrow. I've seen some people saying Sol Sambou could start tomorrow- and while I wouldn't be against it necessarily I would hope we stick with the relatively experience trio of Fofana, Tunnicliffe and LVC which'll give us enough balance between defence and attack in my opinion. It was good to see Christensen get involved in the goals again against Blackburn, and I'm happy his injury doesn't appear to have affected his progression.
We haven't signed anyone who can play in the #10 Role (or anyone at all for that matter) and with the confirmed outgoings of Eisfeld and Chris David on Loan with the imminent departure of Bryan- although his FIFA Ratification is taking forever. This leaves us with really only Alex Kacaniklic to play the #10 Role- which he's proven he can do against Forest; and to a really good level. I point blank refuse to count McCormack as a #10 until we at the very least get a striker at the club that means when McCormack drops back we don't look completely toothless. Kit said in his Press Conference that McCormack dropping back wasn't permanent, but unless the Bryan deal falls through- as I've already said we only have Kacaniklic as the safety blanket to keep McCormack in the front two.
We of course started Dembele and Woodrow under the guise of resting McCormack and Hugo in the reverse fixture- I hope resting is the thing lowest down on Kit's priorities, and we fully go for it; and we can do so by playing McCormack and Hugo up front. While Hugo isn't scoring at the minute- he has a partnership with McCormack that simply works- even when he's on perceived "bad form" he still managed to get two assist when we played Forest and those assists were for McCormack of course. There will of course be people saying we should start Woodrow- and I do like Woodrow don't get me wrong, I just think for the type of game we'll most likely find ourselves in tomorrow we'll need Hugo's experience and quality.
Team for Sunderland:
Bettinelli
Grimmer, Hutchinson, Bodurov, Stafylidis
LVC, Tunnicliffe, Fofana
Kacaniklic
McCormack Rodallega
This game will be a tricky one to navigate don't get me wrong, but I do think if we play to not necessarily our best- but something resembling it we have a good shout of getting through Sunderland and heading up north again to Valley Parade. While Bradford will be a tricky game- once again if we played to our best and played the game right in a silencing the crowd sense the game is most definitely winnable. But, what do they say about running before you can walk? So lets get through tomorrow before I start mapping out our path to Wembley.
Thanks for reading as always, These two games against Sunderland are interesting in the sense of- especially in the first leg how our current team would fair against a perceived Premier League struggler. Thats not to say I think we'd have stayed up had we had the squad we currently have- but it is still an interesting game in that sense. Anyway, lets hope we get through tomorrow with a positive result so we're one step closer to Wembley- which as I've repeatedly said should be the goal for us this season.
No comments:
Post a Comment