Sadly, I agree with KEMP. I don't think CH will take the risk. I think all Fox has done today is to put himself favourably in the shop window.
Currently we've got Johnson, Hoolahan, Fer and Fox as our only fit central midfielders I think, so I guess it wouldn't be too surprising if he at least makes the bench off the back of a positive performance. Better than having Garrido as the only option! Turner is apparently going to be out for a while too.
I think Fox needs a lot of protection to be effective but when you can get him on the ball he is the best passer we have on the pay role. I wonder if he might look good with Fer and Jonny, playing a deeper role. sit redmond in the middle telling him to help on each wing or play through the middle and have RVW and Hooper up top. Could be terrible but if the full backs get involved it could work really well. basically Ruddy Martin - Turner - Bassong - Olsson Howson - Fox - Fer Redmond Hooper - Van Wolfswinkel
Like it Bath, but would rather not use Redmond as he's not that effective at tracking back. Although using another winger would leave us a little short of pace. Bennett's played well centrally before though I guess.
Bennett would be good too, not tracking back is sort of the point, want a fast player who can get the ball and react quickly, basically tell the front 3 their job isn't to defend its to be ready to turn around a attack again.
Played very similar to that with Lambert at the end of our season in the prem but with Johnson instead of fer and hoolahan - jackson - holt as front 3, sometimes. Worked well away to arsenal i remember
Your right Billy we did, i believe Bennett has played that AM sort of role before and been very effective at it, most recently in the win at peterborough last year but most effectively when we went away to the liberty in our first year in the prem. I actually think all of our wingers are probably capable of playing there, Pilks would be very good too, especially given how two footed he is. To be honest though its all very well us coming us with interesting methods to get the best out of our players, were unlikely to see any of them.
It's a bit sad to be honest. I think Fox deserves a prem start, and I think that NCFC owe him that. I'm a bit tipsy so I'm gonna let loose a little here. The club and CH should be ashamed of the way they have treated Fox, Becchio and Hoolahan. Totally out of order. These guys deserve a chance and should be given one! CH is sticking to his signings but I don't think he is being flexible or respectful enough to reward the people who got us here in the first place.
Excellent post K E M P - and it's something that needed to be said. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't if Fox's cross to Jackson that effectively got us promoted???? I was at the game today and wasn't overly impressed. Gave away a VERY simple goal - again. It must be averaging at east one a match. RvW must be getting so fed up by getting in good positions and NOBODY trying to get the ball to him - hence why he has to go back to almost the half-way line to just touch the ball sometimes. PLEASE, PLEASE PLEASE can CH and his staff instil in the rest of the team to at least look for him or Hooper rather than blast a hopeful shot which invariably flies high or wide or both!!!! On the plus side, there was an excellent cross from the right wing in the 2nd half and only a superb save from Stockdale prevented RvW from scoring/
Hoolahan has had a chance, but totally agree about fox and bechio, and the latter WAS a hughton purchase Edit, ditto welly
I think there's a balance to be found, we can't hold on to every player who got us to where we are, nobody seemed too sad to let Anthony McNamee go, but equally there's no reason to force anyone from the championship squad out of contention. In the case of Fox, he's the best passer we have, but as an all-round midfielder he's lacking against Howson, Fer and Tettey, and under Hughton's stewardship the defensive mindset probably makes Johnson seem more useful than Fox, Surman or indeed Hoolahan, so I can see why they aren't regulars. However, when we've got a crippling shortage of midfielders, it seems madness not to recall a player not being used by Barnsley when it leaves us without a central midfielder on the bench. Fox might not be the most complete player, but neither is Johnson. I know I keep banging on about a 4-3-3, but I don't see why we can't use it to rotate central midfielders, either to rest players or tailor the team to the opposition. Johnson and Tettey can rotate the defensive role, Fer and Howson can play box-to-box, Hoolahan and Fox can rotate as the creative influence. In some games we might be able to afford more creativity and play Fox over Tettey/Johnson, others it might be backs to the wall and play Fer, Johnson and Tettey. It's a squad game and I don't feel Hughton is making the most of the resources available to him. I feel this rotation is most underutilised in cup games, despite Hughton making the most changes. Rather than resting as many of your preferred first teamers as possible, I think we should be rotating to see how new combinations work.
Sure, I'd like to think some is done in training, but you can't trial a side in every scenario because we wouldn't have the players to do it. Say we wanted to try seeing how a particularly creative midfield worked against a packed midfield+defence, so pitched Hoolahan, Fox and Fer (+Striker and wingers) against a Johnson, Tettey, Howson midfield (+defence). Whilst it might show whether we can break through our own strongest defence or not, it's harder to test how that midfield would cope if they were under the cosh, as we then wouldn't have the right players available to test them. We're highly unlikely to win a cup at the moment, but if we can survive in the Premier League for a while our chances improve. So I'd rather we used the opening rounds of cups, often against weaker opposition, to try rotation-option combinations in case they provide a useful option for certain league games, or we're forced into them by injuries.