Saturday 8pm Away game 16th vs 17th Must win game for both, should be a rip roaring, attacking feast for the eyes... Brighton missing a few - Webster, Connoly, Andone, March, Lamperty, Burn Newcastle missing a strike force - Wilson, ASM, Almiron, Schar NUFC haven't beaten Brighton in 7 attempts since being promoted together (0W, 3L, 4D) Ref: Anthony Taylor will referee this one, with Gary Beswick and Adam Nunn as his assistants. Kevin Friend has been named fourth official, with Stuart Attwell and Stephen Child on VAR duties at Stockley Park. Praying for a sneaky 1-0/2-1 win.
Statistics my friends, statistics! Brighton's home record blows, they've only 1 won home game out of 14 and only scored 13 goals. This is an easier ask than playing them at our place. And crap as we are with injuries, we couldn't play them at a better time cos half their squads out. Dominate the midfield and defend well and we've got a chance. 1-0 win.
If you want a good set of statistics have a look at the last game we played them. We had all our injured players available and we lost 3-0. We have also NEVER dominated the midfield In years and years against anyone. Finally their home form is comparable to our overall form in the last 19 games we have played.
LOL, I was clutching at straws! Yes you're right about midfield, just keep the defence tight then, Clark is in great form at the moment and if he keeps that up we've got a chance. Hayden and Willock in midfield, Shelvey on the bench (or out of the stadium).
I'd love to see the Longstaff brothers either side of Hayden with Willock pushed into the forward line, JW has such great energy he'd be perfect to play the False 9 role and help out defending from the front as well. Murphy and Fraser either side of him running in behind with JW and the Longstaff brothers arriving late in the box for pull backs. Sean can strike a ball from distance, Matty got a great goal vs Man U and Willock's goal on his debut was a great pull back from ASM to the edge of the box. Obviously we will go with Shelvey and Hendricks and probably Joelinton though.
The Longstaffs have gone off the boil for a while though, maybe start Sean, but both would be a risk. And surely even Bruce isn't retarded enough to start Hendrick? I may be wrong though...
Over Shelvey and Hendrick - I'd risk it for a biscuit. I'd even take Anderson on the bench ahead of them to be completely honest.
Feels to me Bruce plays FIFA or FM. Limited interaction, not a lot of punishment with players out of position, putting players on a pitch when he thinks they're "good" at stuff. Take Gayle the other week. The rest of the world knows Gayle can do one thing (at best) - get in a position to score, in the box. Bruce thought "he's quite quick and is a forward" so stuck him in a split striker system - or on the right wing, to you and me, which didn't work, Or Fraser - on paper, he's quick and dribbles. That's the role of a "false 9", so he sticks Fraser in that false 9 - even though Fraser is just a basic winger - and it doesn't work. Because Fraser keeps drifting to the wing. It just seems to me there's just no grasp of what I'd call basic football management. So Instead you could work hard on the 4-2-3-1, where players will be more comfortable and you have the right personnel, but we're not doing that and I just cannot fathom why not. We'll pick a 4-1-2-1-2-0 thing, and then just stick players in whichever role - on paper - looks about right. If ever there was an advert for football management being way simpler than it's supposed to be, this is it.