There's been quite a few things that have come up in the very short time between the Wycombe Review and this post. I suppose the main one is the ongoing Centre-Back saga. The links with Lewis Dunk simply won't go away, and without saying it's a definite one way or the other I think if Dunk starts tomorrow then he's not coming and if he's left out it's pretty much confirmation that we'll have signed him. In my Cardiff Preview I touched on my worry of us seemingly putting all of our eggs into one basket when it comes to Dunk, but this week has done a lot to defuse those worries. First we were linked with Tim Ream who I did talk about very briefly in my Wycombe Review- but I'll expand on it here. I'm all for signing Ream, he's not necessarily a world-beater- but he's still a marked improvement on Dan Burn for one. So if we end up with Ream instead of Dunk then we've still gotten an improvement, and then if we end up with both then we'll have Dunk, Ream and Hutchinson as pretty decent options and being able to have cover/rotation when needed.
The same can be said for Tarkowski which is one I've seen doing the rounds, but as with my attitude with the Diagouraga and Bidwell links I'm not reading anything into them and especially with the Bjelland news I can't see Brentford selling. Speaking of more recent links, I saw today we've been linked with an 8mill bid for Dwight Gayle. I'd love for us to sign Gayle, I'll throw that out there and were it to be true I'd be more than happy. That said whether it's true in the first place is one question as the link appears to have come from The Mail. Then if it were to be true, if we are putting big money into the Gayle deal- if we don't sign Dunk when it's clear we need a Centre-Back a lot more than we need a Striker (although we still do need one) then I will be pissed off because then it's obvious the rumoured 5mill required for Dunk all this time was available.
In terms of more concrete news, the big news that's come out today is of course the Ross McCormack contract news. I'm really happy with it, I'll start with that- any time we get one of our best players tied to a new deal I'm happy as we have done with McCormack and that's all you can really say on the matter. In other news, we've been drawn against Sheffield United in the next round of the Carling Cup. I'm dreading this one to be perfectly honest, I still have nightmares about the FA Cup replay- and with the August we're having weather wise you just know it'll be chucking it down. That said it's definitely a winnable game on paper, although with the weird way they did the draw for this I don't think we wouldn't have had a winnable game. In short I wanted a "better" draw, I don't know what that necessarily would have been- but it's what we've ended up with- and as said in the Wycombe Review I'm expecting full commitment when it comes to the Carling Cup this season now.
Onto the team for tomorrow, now it's been established Bettinelli is fit with his inclusion on Tuesday the Goalkeeper selection (at least for now) is straightforward. It's not to dis-count Lonergan's performance last week against Cardiff, but Bettinelli is the #1, Lonergan will have known that and for now it's what we should run with. If Bettinelli has a weird patch like he did around Sunderland/Bolton time last season then we can be safe in the knowledge that Lonergan is a capable replacement and as far as the Goalkeeper debate goes that's that for me.
Strangely I think the most talked about Defender for this game by Fulham Fans isn't even in a Fulham shirt. In terms of the Defence that'll be lining up in a Fulham shirt it's pretty much a repeat from Cardiff. The Burn/Hutchinson partnership still scares the life out of me, but with that said I've been quite impressed with Hutchinson's efforts thus far making him a must for tomorrow- and as I've repeatedly said Burn is a necessary evil at the minute so begrudgingly I have to say it's our best option. The Full-Backs pretty much pick themselves, between Grimmer and Garbutt's injuries we only really have Sean Kavanagh as an alternative, (and it turns out he isn't even fit either) to the one's we picked against Cardiff and given I've been reasonably happy with Voser it's not worth changing it up. Tomorrow will be a massive test for him though, so I'm a bit worried on that front.
I'm loving the Midfield debate for now. We've actually got quality options who are going to be left out one way or the other depending on the system we play. While that's not good for the player who's left out, as far as the team goes proper competition for places is great. One player who's definitely safe in his place is Jamie O'Hara, who I saw got another MOTM for the game on Tuesday- and it's like I said in my Wycombe Review while he did fade towards the end he was still a class above anyone else on the pitch. In terms of who makes the team "tick" I genuinely think O'Hara is more important than McCormack with the role he plays and how he plays it- at least for now.
As far as the rest of the selection goes, provided we're using the same system we used last week I'm honestly not sure what I'd do. Pringle and Kacaniklic looked lively as the Wingers we used against Wycombe and against a team like Brighton who more often than not play through the wings with people like LuaLua it might be an idea to fight fire with fire. That said I can't see a scenario where either Cairney or Christensen are left out. One idea that I'd want to see, but simply won't happen would be for Cairney to move into the #10 Role and McCormack move up on the last man. That's the only way I can see us fitting everyone in, but I doubt we'll do that- and it's more likely we start with the same Midfield we did against Cardiff.
The thing you may have noticed in the scenario with Cairney moving centrally and McCormack going up-front would mean Matt Smith dropping out. I rate Matt Smith, I'll start with that- and he is a useful player for us. If we do end up signing Gayle I do think he'd still have a role to play at the club despite what Bristol City fans seem to think judging by Twitter. However, he's simply not a 90 minute guy- and in my opinion he's best served as a "shock tactic" coming off the bench and adding another dimension to us as a team and then and only then having McCormack drop deeper. Whether Kit shares that view is another matter, and it's something I just can't see happening. Like I said in my Wycombe Review, at least in my opinion McCormack is somewhat of a slow-starter for a season and simply needs a goal to spark him to life. Whether that's on Saturday remains to be seen, but the sooner the better.
Most Likely Team for Brighton
My Preference
We're officially back at the Cottage for 3 Games in about a Week and a Half, So I'm definitely looking forward to that. At the very least tomorrows game with be an event between Stockdale, Rosenior and possibly Zamora all coming back- I saw Zamora was a doubt for the game because of a lack of match fitness, I'm not sure if I'm happy or sad about that in all honesty. On the one hand Zamora would 99% have scored against us were he to come back- and on the other we could have ended up with another Darren Bent at the Amex last season. I suppose if Zamora isn't fit I'll have to move on to predicting a Liam Rosenior 90th Minute Winner, or a Dunk one.
Thanks for reading as always, if you missed out on the Wycombe Review- which given time-zones etc. and when I put it up some of you may feel free to go back and read it for my thoughts on the game and expanding on some of the points I've made and referred back to the Wycombe post in this one. At the end of the day every game is worth three points, so I won't hear any of the "it's only August, we've still got time in the Window" stuff that's seemingly brought up regularly at this stage of the season. With that in mind I'm still relatively expectant for the game tomorrow despite the obvious holes in the team and especially with Home Games I'm not expecting anything less than a win. Thanks again for reading, and let's hope the first Review that I'll be thinking over walking back through Bishops Park will be a good one.
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