Match Day Thread To Hull and back - now without Watson

I hope that's not the team, but fear it will be. Smyth might get in for Washington.

 

Me...me...me

Washington and Bogle don't work and even Bow must see that ..... so I would go Washington and Smyth..

 

The latest player to attract the “Bowyer Public Hairdryer” is Purrington, so I can’t see him figuring ahead of Matthews at LB tomorrow- even though Adam isn’t a left back....

 

When Plymouth attacked Maatsen dropped back to a LB position. When we attacked he went more central again. I hope Bowyer keeps it simple by playing players in their natural position, even if it means leaving out one or two favourites.

 

I would like to see the following

Amos
Matthews Gunter Pratley Pearce Maatsen
JFC
Morgan. Williams
Maddison
Washington
5 1 2 1 1

 

5 1 2 1 1 ... I love these modern formations
No disrespect @Dick Plumb1 but I'm very old-fashioned about this kind of thing..
Eventually I think football will come full circle and the wheel (4 4 2) will be reinvented.

 

We need more legs in midfield hence wing backs.

 

Looks good to me dick , best get on the blower to LB

 

Where's Watson?

 

Even though Hull City are not in good form themselves, I suspect Lee Bowyer will see tomorrow’s game as a good one to get one point from. He is highly likely to pick his usual defensive/ ageing line up. It would be great to attack Hull from the start with Williams/ Morgan/ Maddison in the middle, but I can’t see it.

Is anyone else concerned that Ronnie Schwartz hasn’t kicked a football in over 5 months ? (17 July). One assumes that he is now super fit, and ready to play for us from next week ....otherwise .... what’s the point

 

If we sign Schwartz he won't play in a league match until March, if we're lucky.
Of equal likelihood is he'll pick up an injury while training and we won't see him at all.

A point against Hull is no good.
We need to increase our PPG before they pull the plug on this season. Only wins will do that.
A draw will lower our PPG.

 

I get the strong impression that Sandgaard has pulled strings & called in favours to sign Schwartz. But it will be his first false step as #cafc owner if he’s signed a player who is not fit.

 

I broadly agree.
Sadly I'm so used to us signing unfit players it barely even upsets me anymore, which I know is not right.

I think current fitness (and a good fitness record) should be higher up the list of our signing priorities. Higher even than theoretical class and skill, which we hardly ever actually get to see in players who are just too f**king fragile.

Look at all our old promotion seasons, before 2018-19.
Charlton won promotion time and again with a compact squad and a starting XI that hardly ever changed.
Even in 2018-19 we were relatively more compact and stable than other recent years.

But stability, a fixed starting XI and players who really get to know each other's game and so function much better as a team... These things seem to be devalued in the most recent thinking.

Players pull something or tweak something and you don't see them again for two months.
These powder-puffs are like bone china compared to players even a few decades ago.
And a few decades before that, proper men played week-in, week-out on atrocious pitches and real physical conditions, without crying off and going lame for months on end.

 

My concern about Schwartz is how thoroughly he's been scouted. Would Curbs sign a player under these circumstances? Has Bowyer seen him play against decent opposition away from home? Shades of Big Mak I'm afraid, hopefully just being pessimistic. We didn't scout Levitt, just took someone's word for it.

 

Scepticism about Schwartz is understandable, given our track record of signing unfit players.

1st Jan - CAFC sign Schwartz

4th Jan - Bowyer - “Schwartz is going to need a few weeks to get fully fit”

 

11th / 18th Jan - Bowyer "Schwartz has picked up a (type in body part) injury in training. It doesn't look good".

 

“Out for 8 weeks minimum”

 

Then 8/9 weeks (8 weeks later).

 

Someone on Twitter has just pointed out that Steve Gallen said we need “young players with pace”.

 

Young compared to Watson maybe?