brady1993

You mean last year when he was starting to break through before getting injured ?
Because if so I think we can perhaps cut him a bit of slack before completely writing him off.

That's reassuring. Like I said it's reasonable if we feel like he will make a decent LB.

This seems a ridiculously disingenuous take about a 20 year old whose got 7 caps, had to deal with a few knocks and was emerging in the midst of two relegation battles.

You mean last year when he was starting to break through before getting injured ?
Because if so I think we can perhaps cut him a bit of slack before completely writing him off.

Started LB today

This seems a ridiculously disingenuous take about a 20 year old whose got 7 caps, had to deal with a few knocks and was emerging in the midst of two relegation battles.

This seems a ridiculously disingenuous take about a 20 year old whose got 7 caps, had to deal with a few knocks and was emerging in the midst of two relegation battles.

A striker who knows where to be and is great in the air. The perfect striker for Byrne's crosses.

I'm struggling to see Bielik stay with us due to international aspirations. The others aren't under that pressure. 
CM: Bird, Hourihane, LThompson
W/AM: Barkhuizen, Knight, Mendez-Laing, Sibley
Potentially 1 CM and 2 W/AMs needed.

When he's done it's been more or less two up front. And even then that's always been with a pure poacher ahead of him. You'd want to pair him with someone of that ilk in that case; probably not Collins and definitely not CKR. The only person we have you'd want to do that for is likely Stretton.

I think the treatment of Sibley has been poor.
I remember when he started the 4-0 win at Birmingham City just before New Year’s Eve late 2020. He was brilliant as he won the penalty, and tore their defence to shreds. I think he had about five efforts in the first 25 minutes of the game.
He started the subsequent game at Sheffield Wednesday where we were much the better side also but ended up losing 1-0 to a scrappy goal. It was a really unlucky defeat.
Sibley was then dropped. And in came the likes of Patrick Roberts and Lee Gregory. Sibley didn’t start another game until that 4-0 defeat at Cardiff where Rooney threw the towel in before kick off by playing a weakened side. That was in March so Sibley spent 8 weeks or so just warming the bench with the odd late sub appearance.
Sibley then came off the bench in the 2-2 draw at Brentford (coming back from 0-2 down at half-time). He then started the 1-0 defeat at Stoke and the 2-0 win against Luton. Another defeat at Reading and he was dropped, while returning for the Blackburn game where it was 1-1 while he was on and we lost 2-1 after he came off.
Dropped again.
Long story short, it seems Sibley became an obvious player to drop after every defeat, especially away from home. We’d lose on the road and he’d then miss the next five games or so. He clearly needed a strong run in the side, but under Rooney you’d struggle to find a spell where he started more than two consecutive games. 
 

If we sign Collins I just don't see what CKR really gives you as an option when you've got Collins and McGoldrick. We are only likely to play 1 up top Collins and McGoldrick both can lead the line. Stretton and Cybulski competing for the 3rd spot leaves us in a decent position.

Yeah, mostly one of the '2' in a 4231, but they used 433 a couple of times with Grealish playing deeper. An example being our 3-0 defeat at home when Hourihane was the DM. Leeds late in the season was another, so too was the Playoff Final.
I cant see use switching to 433 to be honest. We spent almost all of last season playing 4231 with the AM playing very close to the CF.
I'm expecting Bielik to leave with us opting with a midfield base of Bird and Hourihane. Tommo and another as backup.

I guess that's one thing we've got going for us right now, if Rooney speaks out against people will listen.
Whether it will be enough we shall see.

I guess that's one thing we've got going for us right now, if Rooney speaks out against people will listen.
Whether it will be enough we shall see.

This might be controversial but in the last few games we've looked better without him and not at all looked like we've missed him. Thompson brings the same energy whilst being a substantially better footballer technically, he's making for a much better partner for Bird and has solved a fair issues we were having playing through midfield earlier in the season because of Shinnie.

1) I could be facetious and say that there are 4 goal scorers in that team given that 4 of them have scored this season. But you are right in that it's somewhat reliant on Lawrence and Plange finishing things off but isn't that mostly the case anyway ? It's perhaps a further argument to start Knight (which I'll get to).
2) This I disagree with. Generally when the pattern of play happens that you are talking about is when are less technically gifted players are involved so they either slow the move down, don't have the confidence to turn or don't have the awareness to move into space so they get forced back. It's something that's increasingly happened less since we've involved more technical players. Look at how many times Bird aggressively played it between the lines to a forward in space against Reading, a lot of that comes from with Thompson aside him they can work the opposition out of shape more easily and set up that moment. Bielik will only add more of this as he's excellent at aggressively playing through the lines as well as driving with the ball. What this means is Bird can go and take space higher up in order to play through the likes of Plange and Thompson can use his intelligent movement to drag teams around more. 
I think with that midfield set up, yes we'd have a lot of the ball playing around in the midfield but I think you'd see it going back far far less because they can more readily keep it between them looking for the moment to play someone in.
3) Buchanan does that role as well if not better than Fozzy does. He's close to Fozzy in the air and his pace gives a different option to play long onto. Ebosele on the right means a long option to that wing is more feasible as well. 
4) Like I alluded to I was very close to writing Knight down there for the reasons you mentioned plus he linked excellently with Tommo and Ebosele against Bournemouth. To be honest the more I think about it the more I think it should be Knight. I was thinking Jozwiak initially just because I think his linkup play is better which would be important for how we would be set up here.
Honestly though? Who knows, form ebbs and flows. There a couple elements to the team I'm confident about and there are some I'm less so and some I'm not sure are solvable problems with what we have available. For now I'd stay with team that started the last two games with the idea of bringing the same three subs because it's working really really well, producing the two best performances of the season and I would be hesitant to tinker with it.

If everyone was 100% fit I'd be tempted to go with something like:

Could flip a coin with Roos or Allsop. Think Roos is marginally better but it's a toss up. 2 CBs mostly pick themselves at this point with perhaps an outside argument of trying Bielik there. Buchanan's pace on the left and being better on the ball get's him the nod over Fozzy I've thought for a while that I want to see Ebosele over Byrne. Ebosele is raw but Byrne has racked up a fair few goal costing mistakes this season, gets bullied really easily and is wasteful in the final 3rd a bit too often. It's close with but with this midfield setup I would be tempted to go with Ebosele there. The 3 midfielders are our best midfielders and honestly would be the strongest area of the team. Placing Bielik between Bird and Thompson allows those two to play higher where there passing, link up play and positional awareness can hurt teams more. Lawrence is quietly having his best season in a Ram's shirt, noticeably recently his linkup play has been better and he's making better decisions in the final 3rd, often looking to play others through than take everyone on. I think it's close between Jozwiak and Knight here. I'd go with Jozwiak for his link up play, dribbling and passing but this was the one I was least sure on because Knight gives more energy and probably a bigger goal threat (and his habit of consistently winning several free kicks a game. Plange I think is the best option we have up front to start a game. His energy helps us press aggressively, his movement off the ball is excellent and really keeps teams honest, he clearly has an eye for goal and there has been flashes of good dribbling ability when he's had his confidence up.

This might be controversial but in the last few games we've looked better without him and not at all looked like we've missed him. Thompson brings the same energy whilst being a substantially better footballer technically, he's making for a much better partner for Bird and has solved a fair issues we were having playing through midfield earlier in the season because of Shinnie.

In the last two games the combination of movement, pressing and ball retention from Lawrence, Knight and Jozwiak are a major part of why we've firmly taken control over the games at hand. With CKR, Ebosele and Morrison all coming on when the opposition has already been run ragged to battle against tiring player where their physicality (in the first two cases) and having more time  on the ball in Morrison's case can make a more telling contribution.
They wouldn't have been as effective from the start and if they started we'd have probably not got as firm a foothold on the games in question.

In the last two games the combination of movement, pressing and ball retention from Lawrence, Knight and Jozwiak are a major part of why we've firmly taken control over the games at hand. With CKR, Ebosele and Morrison all coming on when the opposition has already been run ragged to battle against tiring player where their physicality (in the first two cases) and having more time  on the ball in Morrison's case can make a more telling contribution.
They wouldn't have been as effective from the start and if they started we'd have probably not got as firm a foothold on the games in question.

In the last two games the combination of movement, pressing and ball retention from Lawrence, Knight and Jozwiak are a major part of why we've firmly taken control over the games at hand. With CKR, Ebosele and Morrison all coming on when the opposition has already been run ragged to battle against tiring player where their physicality (in the first two cases) and having more time  on the ball in Morrison's case can make a more telling contribution.
They wouldn't have been as effective from the start and if they started we'd have probably not got as firm a foothold on the games in question.

In the last two games the combination of movement, pressing and ball retention from Lawrence, Knight and Jozwiak are a major part of why we've firmly taken control over the games at hand. With CKR, Ebosele and Morrison all coming on when the opposition has already been run ragged to battle against tiring player where their physicality (in the first two cases) and having more time  on the ball in Morrison's case can make a more telling contribution.
They wouldn't have been as effective from the start and if they started we'd have probably not got as firm a foothold on the games in question.

In the last two games the combination of movement, pressing and ball retention from Lawrence, Knight and Jozwiak are a major part of why we've firmly taken control over the games at hand. With CKR, Ebosele and Morrison all coming on when the opposition has already been run ragged to battle against tiring player where their physicality (in the first two cases) and having more time  on the ball in Morrison's case can make a more telling contribution.
They wouldn't have been as effective from the start and if they started we'd have probably not got as firm a foothold on the games in question.

In the last two games the combination of movement, pressing and ball retention from Lawrence, Knight and Jozwiak are a major part of why we've firmly taken control over the games at hand. With CKR, Ebosele and Morrison all coming on when the opposition has already been run ragged to battle against tiring player where their physicality (in the first two cases) and having more time  on the ball in Morrison's case can make a more telling contribution.
They wouldn't have been as effective from the start and if they started we'd have probably not got as firm a foothold on the games in question.