Champagneblade
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I started this under the MGW thread and then realised I'd gone a little down a rabbit hole so here are some thoughts on the lead up to the Boro game starting off with MGW.
MGW's injury may perversely do us a favour.
There isn't much point Wolves recalling a guy to cover Hwang, who is also out injured. By the time the window closes both would expect to be back so it would seem a somewhat futile gesture and represent a status quo with Gibbs-White's development still better served playing week in week out at United.
The fact we play Wolves is probably one of the best blessings of all. It's hardly urgent to have him back for Wolves, even if he is fit by the 9th and it's not as if we will be missing him for that game either as he'd not be logically allowed to play anyhow.
I suppose the question should really be how we cover his absence in the meantime.
McGoldrick is an obvious starter and only missed out against Fulham due to covid restrictions.
So whilst moving Sander into the XI has some logic, I really don't want to go back to a flat midfield three which never really succeeded at this level for us and I'd find slightly negative.
What I always found negated a little our formation (or 3-5-2 generally) was when we were faced with 3 forwards.
4-3-3 often seemed to pose a challenged because unlike 4-4-2, where you effectively have a centre half 'free' you don't get the same luxury if you play against either 4-3-3 or 3-4-3 and push the wider players on.
So for me, rather than just match up and trade two teams 3-5-2, in which case I would still hope that Berge. Norwood and Hourihane/Fleck would be superior to Crooks, McNair and Tevernier, I'd prefer to see the more mobile players take on the Boro backline. I think McGoldrick, who is very good at occupying spaces between lines and N'Diaye's sublime dribbling would present difficulty to the likes of Bamba and Fry.
Chris will be motivated. But for the Boro players this is not their derby game. For United, there will be no lack of individual motivation. Yes, there will have been an appreciation for what he has done for their careers but their most recent memory is a guy who had become tetchy and could not find solutions when the same players looked to him for leadership and to be fair to @FM Blade, who often makes reference to this as a turning point, he's the guy who berated them as League One or Championship players after losing to Leicester even in the first season.
I'd definitely have Sharp up front. I think he would be most motivated of all. I think their relationship was more complicated than just two Blades living the dream together, captain or not. It can't have been lost on Billy that at crucial times Chris wasn't averse to not backing his captain. He inexplicably threw James Wilson on ahead of him in the home Derby, he favoured Leon over him in the first Championship season and having profited from his 23 goals in 40 matches, rather than give his talisman the chance to live his dream, he basically spent the best part of 35m trying to deny it him (McBurnie, Mousset, Robinson) the first season, (despite him having outperformed both Robinson and McBurnie the previous year) and 23m on Brewster and Burke px the second. He only gave Billy 10 starts out of 36 Premiership matches he was available for in season one and just 6 starts in season two out of 28 he was a available for under Chris (discount Leicester).
I find that quite a remarkable about turn having basically fired the team to promotion to then be afforded just a quarter of the available starts. It's hardly anything yet despite this, he was still the one - gaining a point vs Bournemouth and Fulham and getting winners against Norwich, Newcastle, West Brom and scoring in the win vs Bournemouth.
If anything Billy has every right to have an axe to grind with Chris, being dropped immediately, still proving him wrong by scoring against Bournemouth and continuing to be marginalised as Chris persevered with his big money signings.
I personally just think it is a pity that what could have been Billy's big moment of his career was dampened by Chris' apparent desire to replace him. Maybe the manager sees this as ruthlessness shining through but 60m later it seems like a misplaced notion to replace someone who didn't need replacing and money poorly spent.
MGW's injury may perversely do us a favour.
There isn't much point Wolves recalling a guy to cover Hwang, who is also out injured. By the time the window closes both would expect to be back so it would seem a somewhat futile gesture and represent a status quo with Gibbs-White's development still better served playing week in week out at United.
The fact we play Wolves is probably one of the best blessings of all. It's hardly urgent to have him back for Wolves, even if he is fit by the 9th and it's not as if we will be missing him for that game either as he'd not be logically allowed to play anyhow.
I suppose the question should really be how we cover his absence in the meantime.
McGoldrick is an obvious starter and only missed out against Fulham due to covid restrictions.
So whilst moving Sander into the XI has some logic, I really don't want to go back to a flat midfield three which never really succeeded at this level for us and I'd find slightly negative.
What I always found negated a little our formation (or 3-5-2 generally) was when we were faced with 3 forwards.
4-3-3 often seemed to pose a challenged because unlike 4-4-2, where you effectively have a centre half 'free' you don't get the same luxury if you play against either 4-3-3 or 3-4-3 and push the wider players on.
So for me, rather than just match up and trade two teams 3-5-2, in which case I would still hope that Berge. Norwood and Hourihane/Fleck would be superior to Crooks, McNair and Tevernier, I'd prefer to see the more mobile players take on the Boro backline. I think McGoldrick, who is very good at occupying spaces between lines and N'Diaye's sublime dribbling would present difficulty to the likes of Bamba and Fry.
Chris will be motivated. But for the Boro players this is not their derby game. For United, there will be no lack of individual motivation. Yes, there will have been an appreciation for what he has done for their careers but their most recent memory is a guy who had become tetchy and could not find solutions when the same players looked to him for leadership and to be fair to @FM Blade, who often makes reference to this as a turning point, he's the guy who berated them as League One or Championship players after losing to Leicester even in the first season.
I'd definitely have Sharp up front. I think he would be most motivated of all. I think their relationship was more complicated than just two Blades living the dream together, captain or not. It can't have been lost on Billy that at crucial times Chris wasn't averse to not backing his captain. He inexplicably threw James Wilson on ahead of him in the home Derby, he favoured Leon over him in the first Championship season and having profited from his 23 goals in 40 matches, rather than give his talisman the chance to live his dream, he basically spent the best part of 35m trying to deny it him (McBurnie, Mousset, Robinson) the first season, (despite him having outperformed both Robinson and McBurnie the previous year) and 23m on Brewster and Burke px the second. He only gave Billy 10 starts out of 36 Premiership matches he was available for in season one and just 6 starts in season two out of 28 he was a available for under Chris (discount Leicester).
I find that quite a remarkable about turn having basically fired the team to promotion to then be afforded just a quarter of the available starts. It's hardly anything yet despite this, he was still the one - gaining a point vs Bournemouth and Fulham and getting winners against Norwich, Newcastle, West Brom and scoring in the win vs Bournemouth.
If anything Billy has every right to have an axe to grind with Chris, being dropped immediately, still proving him wrong by scoring against Bournemouth and continuing to be marginalised as Chris persevered with his big money signings.
I personally just think it is a pity that what could have been Billy's big moment of his career was dampened by Chris' apparent desire to replace him. Maybe the manager sees this as ruthlessness shining through but 60m later it seems like a misplaced notion to replace someone who didn't need replacing and money poorly spent.
