CH team selection

[Bwian]

Chances are that he's given up on Best; the fact that both CMS and COG were used before him yesterday seems to indicate that. Can't see that Carayol will be made an offer either.

Fingers crossed. If he makes even the slightest attempt to bring Best to the club permanently then he should be shown the door without hesitation.

You don't need to worry about Carayol, as he has signed a contract extension with Middlesbrough. He's only on loan with us as he's coming back from injury.

Another one who is keeping some of our prospects out of the first team while we get him fit for another club.

I can understand loans where the aim is to assess a player before shelling out good money on them or to help us out by filling in for injured players. Best and Carayol are desperation signings that bring nothing to the squad that some of development squad would if they were given a few starts.

 

[Kevlar]

maybe if one of the strikers scored a goal they would keep their place in the team

 

[Bladders]

Probably having a good look at what we have in a match day environment so he knows who he wants to jettison in the Summer.

Reckon he's got a long list of 'get rids' by now.

 

[goldstone]

My main issue is his selection of strikers. Our biggest problem is lack of goals while he is swapping strikers for every game, as well as at half time in some games. If he had stuck with O'Grady as his principal striker (who, after all was doing well in the games under NJ) then he would have built up some understanding with his team mates and built some confidence. Instead of that we get constant tinkering which has achieved so far? .... absolutely effing zilch.

 

[portslade seagull]

Needs the transfer window to get his own men in. Most of the chopping and changing has been done after we strung some results together to make us safe (more or less). I get the feeling that these last 5 games have been used to get a good look at players like CMS, Best, Carayol etc.

Again we failed in the January transfer window Kayal excepted everyone knew we needed strikers and we get Best who hasn't scored for zonks, Still think Colunga would be a better bet than CMS and Best

 

[portslade seagull]

Probably having a good look at what we have in a match day environment so he knows who he wants to jettison in the Summer.

Reckon he's got a long list of 'get rids' by now.

Depends if we stay up ... if we go down can see CMS being retained along with a fair few of the other under achievers

 

[BensGrandad]

I would think that he is actively preparing his retained list having given all the squad time to show their worth. My only criticism is the fact that over the past couple of seasons and this season the successful clubs in the Championship have played with 2 strikers but we still persist with 1 and I cannot fathom out why.

 

[dazzer6666]

Probably having a good look at what we have in a match day environment so he knows who he wants to jettison in the Summer.

Reckon he's got a long list of 'get rids' by now.

Would be easier to have a list of 'keeps'.......

 

[BensGrandad]

I wonder when his retained list will be published. I would suggest 2nd or 3rd May especially of we secure safety this week.

 

[Blue Valkyrie]

If Blackburn save our season on Tuesday, we should jettison all the loans this week, and give chances to Chicksen, Rea, and Walton.

 

[BensGrandad]

If Blackburn save our season on Tuesday, we should jettison all the loans this week, and give chances to Chicksen, Rea, and Walton.

I doubt that would happen because we wouldnt be mathematically safe, realistically so with our GD but how silly would we look if Millwall clawed back the GD by us losing each game 6 or 7 Nil and them winning one by the same margin.

 

[GT49er]

I doubt that would happen because we wouldnt be mathematically safe, realistically so with our GD but how silly would we look if Millwall clawed back the GD by us losing each game 6 or 7 Nil and them winning one by the same margin.

There's mathematical safety and mathematical safety - but that's just plain silly. We might lose two, and they might win two, but landslide victories will not be involved.

 

[The Brighton Buzz]

If Blackburn save our season on Tuesday, we should jettison all the loans this week, and give chances to Chicksen, Rea, and Walton.

My thoughts also, give a few DS players a go or at least put them on the bench and give them a few minutes.

 

[Pondicherry]

When Hughton arrived I seem to remember that he did play a more or less settled team (something Hypia refused to do) for a number of games and results picked up.

Since then he has been tinkering with team selection which in itself is not a problem as for most of this time we have been relatively safe. However, the problem as i see it is that the tinkering has been brainless and has proved nothing that we didn't know already (Best lazy, CMS crap, Stockdale eror prone, COG ok but no goals etc etc)

What would have been more useful and would have demonstrated some intelligence and insight is some of the following:

Play two strikers up front (CMS/COG or CMS/Best) as others have pointed out.
Play two out and out wingers (see Huddersfield).
Can Ince play central defence.
Is Walton up to it.
Rea for next season.
Chicksen?
Swap Calde and Bruno around.
3 at the back with wing backs.

All we appear to have done is shuffled the deckchairs.

 

[BensGrandad]

There's mathematical safety and mathematical safety - but that's just plain silly. We might lose two, and they might win two, but landslide victories will not be involved.

We have a better GD of 22 goals. If Millwall lost 1-0 Tuesday that would mean a difference of 23. We lose 6-0 against Watford quite feasible if the team is filled with young inexperienced players and Millwall beat Derby 5 or 6 - 0 it is then down to 10 or 11 goals so a similar score line at Middlesbro, unlikely but possible, we have conceded 9 goals there once before and they will be hell bent on automatic promotion, so I wouldnt expect CH to take the chance of playing inexperienced players against Watford as suggested. Possibly at Middlesbro but not against Watford as it is too chancy.

 

[GT49er]

We have a better GD of 22 goals. If Millwall lost 1-0 Tuesday that would mean a difference of 23. We lose 6-0 against Watford quite feasible if the team is filled with young inexperienced players and Millwall beat Derby 5 or 6 - 0 it is then down to 10 or 11 goals so a similar score line at Middlesbro, unlikely but possible, we have conceded 9 goals there once before and they will be hell bent on automatic promotion, so I wouldnt expect CH to take the chance of playing inexperienced players against Watford as suggested. Possibly at Middlesbro but not against Watford as it is too chancy.

Shipping 9 at Middlesbrough - yeh, but that was 57 years ago! Still, I'd take that quite happily if Watford repeat the favour they did us a few months prior to that!

Millwall winning two matches and us losing two is possible, but unlikely; to turn over that huge goal difference is unprecedented, and such a bizarre idea that it can be discounted. PS I wasn't one of the people advocating playing the kids in these matches!

 

[AnotherArch]

My main issue is his selection of strikers. Our biggest problem is lack of goals while he is swapping strikers for every game, as well as at half time in some games. If he had stuck with O'Grady as his principal striker (who, after all was doing well in the games under NJ) then he would have built up some understanding with his team mates and built some confidence. Instead of that we get constant tinkering which has achieved so far? .... absolutely effing zilch.

When Kayal was pushed up front as the second striker in the second half at Rotherham, we generally played far higher up the pitch but Kayal was paired with Best so it lost some effect. Since then it has taken CH two and a half games to pair Kayal with COG up front (although they were
Both on the pitch last Tuesday, Kayal went deeper in the second half).
When Best gets the ball with his back to goal, he runs away from goal and always looks to pass back. When COG gets in in the same situation he can either play it back OR turn with it and play the ball forward, and in a tighter space. Could have been contnuing to build an understanding with Kayalvas the runner instead of all this tinkering.