Anybody with a pair of boots fancy a game? It is getting THAT desperate. Not that this should be in any way surprising. I have been warning of this since the start of August but everybody else, it seems, had their fingers in their ears whilst singing "LA LA LA we are heading for the top 8". Zola has become the Premiership's Old Mother Hubbard, going to his cupboard to find somebody to play up front, only to discover the cupboard is bare. No Ashton, no Cole, no Hines, no Jimenez even - and Diamanti, it seems, isn't a forward after all!
How can we cobble together a side to score, never mind to get a result? Well games at St Andrews haven't exactly been goal fests so far this season with just 9 goals in total scored in the 7 games played there thus far. Mind you, Hull were goal shy until we rocked up so there is no guarantee that Birmingham's meagre goals for return will not suddenly be bolstered. In fact, Birmingham have plenty of pace up front which will cause us problems if we play Tomkins in the heart of our defence. Then there is Bowyer, arriving late in our box. It will be Kovac's job to mark him so it is a pretty safe bet that Bowyer will score! I fear Birmingham will net twice, so how can we construct a team with the capability to reply with two or more?
As I keep saying, Diamanti must be the key. His free kicks are dangerous and his passes do create chances. But create chances for whom excatly? It is getting increasingly harder to find a combination that may work. My side would read:
Green - Faubert, Da Costa, Gabbidon, Ilunga - Parker, Kovac - Stanislas, Diamanti, Collison - Franco.
The idea would be for Diamanti to "float" in midfield, with no defensive responsibilities what so ever. Both Parker and Kovac would be ordered to sit and hold. That would mean no surging runs from Parker because we cannot afford for him to lose possession and be taken out of the game inside Birmingham's half. Faubert and Ilunga would be encouraged to raid down the flanks and Stanislas and Collison would have attack as their main priority, given neither are great at defending anyway. With Franco, Stanislas and Collison all coming from deep and nobody leading the line in the conventional sense, the hope would be that Birmingham's centre backs come out in search of somebody to mark, causing confusion and disarray.
Will it work? Well it can't work any worse than Zola's team against Man Utd can it?
6 comments:
Just a thought with regards to Dean Astdon, does anybody remember the Father Ted episode with the over 75's five a side?
I Propose a system of tracks to be laid on the turf to allow dean to keep playing, but in a wheel chair,
which zola could control from the byline. I dont know of any rules against this, but feel free to correct me.
This could also be used by Dyer and all the other players who think that they now have a nice long xmas break.
It could work!....but i have had rather a lot of night nurse & my judgement might not be sound.
Dave D
Good team and quite attacking for an away fixture. I would probably go with the same or maybe swap Stan for the experience of Dyer if he's fit.
Not like you to agree with HF Stani, have you actually got a mind of your own?
How about an opinion from you RTH/OSP/Anonymous?
Decent formation, quite like how Liverpool line up I believe. I worry about our counter-attack though, and do you suggest we have the wingers wide or inside? could work, but as you say Kovac can't mark so that is probably our main worry. I think the wingers HAVE to track back, or at least have the full-backs closing down less, as we have conceeded from so many diagonal crosses.
Errm, I did say I'd probably have Dyer in place of Stan. Miss that did we Tom?
Our back 5 picks itself and we only have one striker. The only way I could realistically have disagreed with HF is with the choice of midfielders - which I did. But you didn't spot that because you come to this blog with the sole intention of disagreeing with whatever HF writes and abusing whoever agrees with him.
There are ways of disagreeing with people without swearing at them. Mind of my own? I didn't see your opinion on team selection.
Some of these chaps are so protective of you HF ;)
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