What's our strongest team in your opinion (when everyone is fit to play)? Not counting Rodriguez and Forster. They are long term injuries. For me: ------------Pelle -Tadic----Davis----Mane ------Clasie-Wanyama -Bertrand-VVD-Fonte-Cedric -------------Stekelenburg Imo this is our best team no matter who the opposition is. Home and away. Mane occasionally roaming central, with Davis shifting to the right. The only slight tweak is Davis on the right and Mane central from the start against better sides.
Why can't JRod be included? That was in the T&Cs. JWP doesn't look like he can bench press much more than his lunch box so can't include him either...
He's out for at least two more months and we don't know if he'll ever be back near his best. I don't think there is much point including Forster either in this discussion. There's no point discussing what may, or may not be, the best team six months down the line. That's my opinion anyway. I'm talking about our best team for the games coming up
They are injured long term. It's impossible to predict what sort of form they'll be in when they return and it's not relevant at the moment to team selection. I was more looking for what people's team would be for the games coming up.. what they think is our strongest team from the players that are usually available is..
That's the team, ignoring the two you mentioned. I don't believe anyone would really say any different. Sort of a non-debate really. The question I'd ask for a debate is when is it acceptable to change that, assuming the same fitness rules apply. People seem to moan when Ron changes things up sometimes, yet you can't play the same team every week these days for a number of reasons. Your selection based on your criteria is spot on.
I think Clasie is a far better footballer than Romeu, and Yoshida is not an adequate full back, but a decent back up cb. With this in mind the rest of the team picks itself because there's not much competition in the other positions.
Is this not the key here. We don't have many arguments because there is little debate about the competition for individual places, therefore if a couple have a dip you don't have such good replacements.
Are we not missing the point that Ron has been making. The best 11 really depends who we are playing. Add to that we now have a big enough squad to start rotating units. With three big games this week, the man citeh game was first time we have really seen Ron use this and although we lost it showed that we can still compete against the top teams with 3 or 4 of our so called automatic choices missing. That bodes well for the future and I hope he continues to rotate. If he does, it will be easier for people like Romeu, Juanmi and Caulker to slot in seamlessly.
We have competition for places everywhere except the back 5. Which is fine in that you want your defence to operate as a consistent unit. But I think we all know we have a problem at RB.
