Strikers and formation for next year

[Champagneblade]

I might be being harsh on the lad but every time I see Osula play I just see a League Two striker. I'm probably wrong, and I hope he proves me wrong.

Supposing Jebbison stays, his progress has been massively stilted this season. Brewster is just too injury prone to be considered a reliable and consistent starter.

Traore won't be around next season. Of those strikers on our books, One may well be our best bet but he's still very much unproven.

We'll definitely use the loan market to bring in a decent striker. We'll have to.

Guess it depends how radical Chris is allowed to be.

Alan Biggs mentioned he’s spoken to him and he was aware of all the facts when he took the job and knows he will have to build a young team in the summer, which is encouraging if so.

 

[John Cutsbushes]

Forget Hackford he will never be Championship standard IMO
One is miles off it, raw and does more things wrong than right at this point in his career
McBurnie and Baldock haven't got.more than 4 consecutive games in them, as I've repeatedly posted their bodies are no longer up to the rigours of football

 

[Bell4]

It makes me wonder if we have to play two strikers up front next year and that is why we are often gravitate back to 3-5-2.

We seem to have developed a stable of young forwards at the club who, given the expense of buying strikers, we would be silly to overlook.

We seem ill-fitted to a flat 4-4-2 without having wingers we own on the books and how else do you play two strikers?

Why two? Well, we should be optimising resources. To my mind we have:

Osula
Jebbison
Brewster
Hackford
Oné
Traore
Marsh

All of these, with positive murmurings from Wilder about Jebbo, will be in contract and there is still a possibility that McBurnie stays. So to choose a formation with just one seems wasteful and would require excessive recruitment.

Then there is the midfield. We have high hopes for both Brooks and Arblaster. But are they ready to carry a Championship midfield as a two? I’d think adding Hamer or Souza there is a third option or rotational with also Davies in the mix is more likely to bring them on.

So it feels already that some systems are in and some out.

To me then, we have a couple of options.

Either we go back to 3-5-2 based on dominating possession at the level below, or we go for a midfield diamond, similar to what Forest used to play under Paul Hart.

You’d have room for either Souza at DM if he stayed or Hamer as DM in a deep-lying playmaker role with Brooks to the left and Arblaster to the right. You could also then either play Hamer or Davies in a 10 type role.

I think Robinson has surpassed expectations in that he can play in a three or a two and though not excelling at the top, Trusty is an option on the left with RND too. To the right there are options to work through. Decisions need to be made on Baldock and Bogle but we have the Irish lad who, similar to Trusty, can play centre back or full back (though I read on twitter that Baldock wasn’t getting a new deal and he’s disappointed as he’s just bought a house, source twitter so not sure if true). We then carefully need to work out who is the dominant centre half. Can we dispel that Egan cannot play in a two?

—————-Grbic—————
Baldock Egan Robinson RND
—————-Hamer—————
Arblaster——————Brooks
—————-Davies—————
——Jebbison———Osula——

No recruitment to come up with this. I asked a question where Slimane might play, perhaps he is another option where I put Davies and Davies can also play where Arblaster is.

I’m expecting change but excessive recruitment bothers me with our track record so trying to work out for the Championship what makes the best of what we have. I’m assuming Anel and Archer leave.

Love this cos Suza is nowhere to be seen - carry on sir

 

[scouseblade]

Egan is a crucial re-signing for me. He has that experience and is definitely still a top Championship defender. As for the others, if they don't sign, they'll be missed but we'll have to move on. Wilder (or whoever as some think he will walk) has a massive rebuild. Probably, frees and youth. Even so, if we can keep the core of this team together its a top half championship team. Not sure its quality enough to go for top 6, top 2 (plus do we really want to with penniless in charge?)

 

[Blademan89]

Li

Souza isn’t what a possession heavy Championship team needs anyway.

You need a defensive midfielder with a bit more dynamism. Like a younger, quicker version of Norwood who can get the ball into dangerous areas quickly.

Norwood circa 2020 was great when we had overloads on the wings because he could switch play quickly and expose defences. Less so now, he’s a bit too slow unfortunately

You mean like Tommy Doyle who should have been our no1 target in the summer on a permanent (if it was possible). But we ended up with souza.

 

[Balham]

Egan is a crucial re-signing for me. He has that experience and is definitely still a top Championship defender. As for the others, if they don't sign, they'll be missed but we'll have to move on. Wilder (or whoever as some think he will walk) has a massive rebuild. Probably, frees and youth. Even so, if we can keep the core of this team together its a top half championship team. Not sure its quality enough to go for top 6, top 2 (plus do we really want to with penniless in charge?)

Disagree. Egan will want a multi-year deal and this season should have proven beyond doubt that he's not a Premier League centre half. He would also (with good reason) demand a top end salary and we should be looking to invest that into a more mobile, quicker but perhaps more unproven option.

We should have cashed in on Egan after relegation first time around. We'd have brought in £8-£12m.

 

[Tony_Kaufman]

100% agreed

If it was a choice of having to sell Hamer or Souza when relegated you would hope we’d sell Souza.

Not because he’s got less ability to Hamer or whatever but he’s just not what we need in the championship where we should be dominating a lot of games.

Who's going to buy Souza based on how he's played this season? It's all well and good saying players will leave but they have to attract interest first. Hardly anyone will be sold as they've all been so bloody awful no one else will want them.

 

[jt64]

Disagree. Egan will want a multi-year deal and this season should have proven beyond doubt that he's not a Premier League centre half. He would also (with good reason) demand a top end salary and we should be looking to invest that into a more mobile, quicker but perhaps more unproven option.

We should have cashed in on Egan after relegation first time around. We'd have brought in £8-£12m.

Who's going to pay that much for him at that point? He'd already proven he's not a PL centre back by that stage due to his complete lack of pace. Maybe a newly promoted side, but one of those was Brentford anyway which seems unrealistic for obvious reasons, the other two being Norwich and Watford - the latter would almost certainly be hunting from overseas, and Norwich (iirc) were skint at the time anyway

 

[TJ blade]

If we start next season with Jebbison and Osula up front it will be a long, hard season. None have goalscoring records that suggest they should be starting in the Championship and just because they’re ‘ours’ doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be looking for other options.

We had MGW then Ndiaye to get us through the previous 2 championship campaigns, we’d need that creativity replacing or we’d just have 2 big gangly lads who like to play on the shoulder of the defender and it wouldn’t work. McBurnie with one of them might work if they learn how to score 15+ goals.

We’ll need 2 strikers scoring at least that to get promoted again I reckon plus some goals from deeper to help out.

Agree mate. If jebbo & Osula are leading the line next season were well and truly fucked! The clearouts got to be a big one and in my opinion were in for some more pain! Unless he fucks off at the top and a miracle happens and at last we get somebody who's interested, it's more of the same sadly

 

[FTPE]

Here's our number 10 next season.
Get young Marsh behind Jebbo/Osula/One/Hackford and we could score for fun in the Championship.

 

[jt64]

That would be the guy that did his ACL the other month, right?

 

[The Darton Blade]

All I hope is Brewster ain't here next season

 

[Champagneblade]

Who's going to buy Souza based on how he's played this season? It's all well and good saying players will leave but they have to attract interest first. Hardly anyone will be sold as they've all been so bloody awful no one else will want them.

I often wonder who will want our players.

Anel, Souza, Hamer.

I’ve heard folk say “he won’t want to drop a level”.

Who the Fook is going to buy them? Anel has been part of a defence that has shipped 8 once and 5 three times. He’s lucky we’re interested in keeping him. Unless a club from another league has missed large chunks of the season, he’ll need to rebuild his rep at the level we just came from.

Souza has had his moments and there may be some European teams who are happy with a defensive midfielder with obvious ball playing limitations. Not sure he can come shouting the odds either. Again, who from the Prem will come for him?

Hamer, he’s 27 already. Unless a European league is attracted to his occasional goals, he will also struggle to get another PL gig.

This might all work in our favour. The only thing is, even if they do perform at the level below, we’ll know how woefully short they will be if we came back up.

I’m not in the slightest worried about anyone jumping ship. It’s more likely we’d like to shift them and can’t!

 

[Balham]

Who's going to pay that much for him at that point? He'd already proven he's not a PL centre back by that stage due to his complete lack of pace. Maybe a newly promoted side, but one of those was Brentford anyway which seems unrealistic for obvious reasons, the other two being Norwich and Watford - the latter would almost certainly be hunting from overseas, and Norwich (iirc) were skint at the time anyway

West Ham were strongly linked, Wolves less strongly so. If we were even remotely professionally run we could have found a buyer.

 

[Silent Blade]

That would be the guy that did his ACL the other month, right?

Marsh? Broke his arm

 

[jt64]

Marsh? Broke his arm

Yeah. I thought he'd got over that then got injured again

 

[Silent Blade]

Yeah. I thought he'd got over that then got injured again

Peck did his ACL