Derby County v Brighton

[Bald Eagle's Barmy Army]

27 minutes ago, DesertRam said:

When everyone is fit,      Is this still the dream team ???????

 

                      Carson

Christie   Keogh   shackell   forsythe

                      Thorne

         Bryson   Hughs   Hendrick

                    Ince

                           Martin

The groundsman would hate that, the middle of the pitch would need seeding after every game.

[oomarkwright]

47 minutes ago, CHCDerby said:

 

Looks like the missing 'e' from

 

1 hour ago, DesertRam said:

When everyone is fit,      Is this still the dream team ???????

 

                      Carson

Christie   Keogh   shackell   forsythe

                      Thorne

         Bryson   Hughs   Hendrick

                    Ince

                           Martin

hughes has graduated to forsyth!

Sorry about the gaps n the extra quotes. My phone IS doing wierd thoIngs. Things! Cant go back n change that now?!

[admira]

Reading all these suggested line-ups and permutations really makes me realise what a strong squad we have and why we've not needed to enter the transfer market.   

[Dimmu]

19 hours ago, SimonBHA said:

Stockdale

Rosenior Bruno Dunk Bong

Knockaert Sidwell Kayal Murphy

Hemed Baldock

Subs: Maenpaa, White, Ince, Holla, LuaLua, Skalak, Murray.

That would probably be my team for Saturday assuming there are no reinforcements this week. Stephens will be a big miss and strange having Bruno at centre back although he looked decent against Lazio in that position yesterday.

 

Surely Murray is playing? Murray-Hemed upfront?

Strong team anyway.

 

[PistoldPete2]

Shouldnt there be a match talk heading? I'm confused. 

[TETRA]

In someways I'm glad we are playing Brighton very early in the season. At least we are not playing them as them being the only unbeaten team in the Championship after 20 games or so like last season. That must give us a slightly better chance at least of getting 3 points I would like to think. I'm just hoping their disappointment & possible hang over of coming so very close to being promoted at the end of last season might affect their performances early on in this.

[TETRA]

4 hours ago, admira said:

Reading all these suggested line-ups and permutations really makes me realise what a strong squad we have and why we've not needed to enter the transfer market.   

I still can't quite understand though why we should go quite so mad on spending last summer & spending nothing so far this ???. I'd have preferred Mr Pearson spending £25 Million then Mr Clement doing so.

[r4derby]

4 hours ago, admira said:

Reading all these suggested line-ups and permutations really makes me realise what a strong squad we have and why we've not needed to enter the transfer market.   

Agreed!

[r4derby]

Question:

with us having a strong squad, particularly causing headaches picking midfielders and strikers, where does our squad rank compared to everyone else in the division?

In other words, whose squad would you take over ours for this season (if you had to swap all the players)

I honestly think none, not even free spending Newcastle

[Day]

Pre Brighton Podcast with @davenportram and @Alpha

[Bald Eagle's Barmy Army]

1 hour ago, TETRA said:

I still can't quite understand though why we should go quite so mad on spending last summer & spending nothing so far this ???. I'd have preferred Mr Pearson spending £25 Million then Mr Clement doing so.

Did you know Pearson was going to be manager this season 12 months ago?

[Sexydadbod]

40 minutes ago, r4derby said:

Question:

with us having a strong squad, particularly causing headaches picking midfielders and strikers, where does our squad rank compared to everyone else in the division?

In other words, whose squad would you take over ours for this season (if you had to swap all the players)

I honestly think none, not even free spending Newcastle

I'd take Newcastle's over ours. I think they might hit the 100 points barrier this season. They have quality players in their starting 11 and have lots of depth and apparently they still want 4 more players. I'm hoping that all these signings for them will cause them to have a slow start. I'd also probably still take Norwich's squad over ours as they have only really lost Redmond but other than that yes we still have one of the best squads in the league. It's all about finding the right balance now 

[SimonBHA]

On 8/1/2016 at 14:43, Derbados said:

How are you expecting to get on this season mate? do you think you can replicate last season or even maybe even go one better? 

I think it really depends on whether we can hold onto our players. Kayal and Stephens both have a year left on their deals and haven't signed new contracts that we offered them whilst Knockaert, Hemed and Dunk have all had bids for their services rejected too. If we keep them all, and add to the squad then I think we could go one better but losing Kayal or Stephens in particular could be catastrophic because those two really were the heartbeat of the side last season. Could be harder this season though in terms of teams expecting us to be good now and playing more defensive against us. Everyone tried to beat us last season as no one really believed we were the real deal until we recovered from our Christmas wobble.

[SimonBHA]

10 hours ago, Dimmu said:

Surely Murray is playing? Murray-Hemed upfront?

Strong team anyway.

 

Yeah possibly. We played Murray and Hemed together against Lazio on Sunday but we'd usually have one target man and one nippier/smaller striker (Baldock or Wilson last season) so my gut feeling was Sunday's front line was more an experiment rather than how we'll line up on Saturday. I could very easily be wrong of course!

If Sidwell isn't fit and Ince has to start I could see us playing 433/451 as Ince is good in front of the back 4 but isn't suited to a two man midfield really.

[Bris Vegas]

Some of the line-ups on here are horrific. 

I see 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1 with Darren Bent uptop, Blackman out wide, Hendrick in a midfield two, Russell playing as a flat left midfielder. I'm sorry, but if we go with that we will be midtable fodder.

You're basically getting rid of Martin and one of our better midfielders (possibly two) to accomodate Bent and Blackman in a formation that won't get the best out of the likes of Russell, Hughes and another CM.

Madness IMO. I'll gladly accept I'm wrong if we do well, but I predict a struggle if we go down this route.

But all means if we want to play 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1, at least have the right players to do it - and that would mean selling off a few and replacing them with proper players who can fit the system.

If you want Martin out the side to play 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1 then so be it, but don't replace him with Bent and Blackman on the wing! At least buy a proper decent striker and winger.

[Ambitious]

6 minutes ago, Bris Vegas said:

Some of the line-ups on here are horrific. 

I see 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1 with Darren Bent uptop, Blackman out wide, Hendrick in a midfield two, Russell playing as a flat left midfielder. I'm sorry, but if we go with that we will be midtable fodder.

You're basically getting rid of Martin and one of our better midfielders (possibly two) to accomodate Bent and Blackman in a formation that won't get the best out of the likes of Russell, Hughes and another CM.

Madness IMO. I'll gladly accept I'm wrong if we do well, but I predict a struggle if we go down this route.

But all means if we want to play 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1, at least have the right players to do it - and that would mean selling off a few and replacing them with proper players who can fit the system.

If you want Martin out the side to play 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1 then so be it, but don't replace him with Bent and Blackman on the wing! At least buy a proper decent striker and winger.

I'd suggest most people are going for the 4-4-1-1 as it's the most likely formation for this game Saturday. 

I don't think it will stick, though. I give it a month before we're back to 4-3-3. 

I do agree that playing two strikers on the wing seems a little bizarre, but we literally have no natural wide midfielders apart from Camara. If we're going to attempt to go down that route then we're going to have to use Blackman and Russell. 

[cannable]

14 hours ago, admira said:

Reading all these suggested line-ups and permutations really makes me realise what a strong squad we have and why we've not needed to enter the transfer market.   

Meh. Lots of quality individuals but it's all about the collective.

I'd have our squad from the start of 14/15 over this one in a heartbeat. 

[Papahet]

                Carson

Christie Keogh Shack Foz

Blackman Hughes Johnson Weimann

                 Ince

                 Bent

 

Can't believe I've gone Bent over Martin, crazy what a few friendly goal's can do. Draw written all over it.

[Bris Vegas]

13 minutes ago, Ambitious said:

I'd suggest most people are going for the 4-4-1-1 as it's the most likely formation for this game Saturday. 

I don't think it will stick, though. I give it a month before we're back to 4-3-3. 

I do agree that playing two strikers on the wing seems a little bizarre, but we literally have no natural wide midfielders apart from Camara. If we're going to attempt to go down that route then we're going to have to use Blackman and Russell. 

Thing is, we have a surplus of central midfielders and at the beginning of the summer central defenders too. 

It's blindingly obvious we have a squad suitable for playing 4-3-3, so unless Pearson is going to break mould and go againt his preferred system to suit the players remains to be seen.

But so far in pre-season it looks like he is sticking to what he knows best - the 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1.

But surely it would have dawned on him that we don't have the right players to play this way? Like you say, we have no wingers. We have inside forwards, or players capable of playing either side of a CF in a 4-3-3 such as Ince, Russell and Weimann, but we have no genuine wingers for a flat four midfield.

So I wonder if Pearson has asked for new additions - and if he hasn't, why hasn't he? Or has he been told by Mel Morris that we have a squad to compete, and it's his job to get them over the line.

If that's the case... Then why appoint a manager who predominently plays 4-4-2 when we don't have a squad o suit this system? 

The way I look at it... Either Mel Morris has made a big mistake in terms of appointment, or he's made a big mistake in not allowing Pearson to modify the squad to his needs.

Added to the CBs we've sold this summer, we could have also got rid of one or two midfielders and possibly a wide player such as Blackman/Weimann and had enough to buy a top striker and wide midfielder to fit the 4-4-2 / 4-4-1-1.

I can't make sense of what we have tried to do this summer. 

[Rev]

I love Martin, by far our best forward of recent times.

Good technique, excellent football brain and a more than decent strike and assist rate to boot.

Now's a big test for him, and I'm looking forward to how he responds to not being 1st choice.

Hopefully he'll knuckle down and show NP why he can't be ignored, I think he's more than good enough to play in a different system, now it's up to him to show it.