Knight and Shinnie

[Rampage]

22 hours ago, Carl Sagan said:

After Blackburn we made five changes and we had to. You've got to send a signal to the players that some performances are unacceptable. But it sometimes means in solidifying the team, you lose something. If I recall, it was trying to tighten up that saw the Bald Eagle drop Baiano for Darryl Powell, a huge backward step.

Shinnie and Knight have done brilliantly, but football fans are fickle things and there was talk until only recently that we wouldn't sell Bird to Chelsea for £20m or Sibley to Leeds for £15m. Now people don't want Bird in the first team and can't find a place for Sibbo either. Happily it's a long season with lots of back-to-back games and everyone will get their chance if they work hard and stay fit, but my preferred midfield would have Sibley in ahead of Shinnie. My preferred defence would have only two centrebacks because then we could play more midfielders. With Rooney, Bielik, Bird, Knight, Shinnie, Sibley and Holmes it's an area we're very strong in. Fitting all the pieces into the jigsaw is pretty tough, but that's a good thing.

I prefer only two centre backs but without a powerful effective front three, the two CHs would probably not keep the ball out of the bet. We can transition to two CHs when the front three are scoring a couple of goals a game which may take time. Personally I cannot see where Bielik fits, especially when Rooney is in the team. Defence looks solid and should be with five at the back and Shinniesta and Knight protecting them.