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Favoured Starting XI

What is your favoured starting XI?

  • 4-4-2 Defoe and Crouch up front, Keane on bench

    Votes: 72 61.5%
  • 4-4-2 Defoe and Crouch up front, Keane left midfield

    Votes: 1 0.9%
  • 4-4-2 Defoe and Keane up front, Crouch on bench

    Votes: 35 29.9%
  • 4-4-2 Keane and Crouch up front, Defoe on bench

    Votes: 1 0.9%
  • 4-3-3 Crouch up front with Defoe and Keane playing off (or similar)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • One of the above with Pavlyuchenko starting in place of someone

    Votes: 5 4.3%
  • Something else

    Votes: 3 2.6%

  • Total voters
    117

Yakflange

Well-Known Member
Jul 30, 2004
852
1,032
billnick: "You missed off 'Depends on the opposition'" and striebs: "Any pair from Defoe, Keane and Crouch but not all 3 at site time" - very good points, sorry I missed them.

Shepspurs: "This poll will only prove the adage that 'you are as good as your last game.'" - fair point too, but given how much it is being discussed in other threads, I thought it was worth trying to have a proper debate about it.

adwanhussein: "It is the depth of the squad that we are lamenting about now" - agreed, but we looked a bit lost when Defoe, Modric and Lennon were all out injured.

Mogga321: "Beyond me how Hudd is rated so highly - NEVER EVER DONE IT AGAINST A TOP FOUR TEAM - NEVER - FACT.....The reason for this is that he is too slow, to imobile & simply cannot run a midfield... etc..." - definitely agree with this. If Huddlestone can keep performing at his best against any opponent/opposition, then fine, he's got the shirt - but if not, then it's Jenas for me too. Or perhaps playing Huddlestone against "lesser" opposition (until he gains more experience) and Jenas in bigger games, though probably not ideal, could be considered.

Mogga321: "As for Crouch: - Good plan B but no more...we are too predictable when he plays" - true, but that's not Crouch's fault. He, and we as a team, are perfectly capable of playing the ball on the ground.

It's worth remembering that, at the beginning of the season, despite many people (myself included) saying that it wouldn't work, we had a pretty successful run with Keane and Defoe playing up front together, with Crouch benched.

But for the time being, assuming form and fitness, my front six would be:

Lennon Palacios Jenas Modric
Defoe Crouch

Damn hard to leave out Kranjcar, I've always been a big fan. Out of interest, can he play central (or right) midfield?

At the moment, I'd find it difficult to fit Keane into a starting XI, though it's a close run thing and if I did it would be in the same formation, swapping for Crouch.

As Shepspurs says above, it would be interesting to do this poll again in a month or two.

p.s. Er, defence... damn it... I'll think about that another day!
 

JimmyG2

SC Supporter
Dec 7, 2006
15,014
20,779
The important thing to me is that we have cover and options.
People will pick their favourites and disparage others but we have:
Lennon/Jenas/Huddlestone/Palacios/Modric/Kranjcar with Ohara (after New Year) Bale and Bentley for backup for four midfield places.
We have four forwards, although we only ever use three, with Dos Santos to return from injury and to be honest it doesn't seem to matter which two we play.
We have cover for what is most people's back four in Naughton, Hutton, Bassong and Dawson and again Bale.

This is without mention of any of the younger players who are mainly out on loan.
This seems to me a good quality squad from which Harry can plan for each game and give him support for the inevitable injuries, suspensions, African Cup and so on.

I know that this was not the name of the game here but it is much more realistic approach.
Personally I have always championed JJ. and Hud but Kranjcar's performance gave me pause for thought on Sunday and I wondered if we could get Kranjcar and Modric in the same midfield or whether they should play serially.
Modric won't be match fit for several weeks in any case.
Pavlyuchenko looks as if he will be off in January, Harry is already talking his price up by saying he doesn't want to sell him, but by then Dos Santos should be available.

We should enjoy but not set too much store by Sunday's performance against a team that on the day played very poorly. 442 and a higher tempo with a balanced midfield seemed to be the key here rather than purely down to personel.
:grin:Even without Defoe's five goals we would have won comfortably




I
 

davidmatzdorf

Front Page Gadfly
Jun 7, 2004
18,106
45,030
I always find "first 11" competitions a bit superfluous, because no one ever gets to see the favoured formation. There's always someone injured or suspended. That's why it's a squad game.

I remember, during the revolving-door Summer of 2008, the one thing that no one debated (for a change) was our defence. Everyone knew that our first choice defence would be Hutton, King, Woodgate and Bale. The number of times that back four has started a match together: 0.

Team-building involves getting a squad where individual players can be moved in and out, without badly disrupting the overall style and effectiveness. That's why I'm more interested in which are our players without a suitable replacement and very uninterested in whether (for instance) Harry can "keep Jenas happy" and "keep Crouch happy" when Huddlestone and Defoe and starting. Jenas and Crouch will get games, because it's a rarity for any player to be fit throughout a whole season.

The players whom we find hard to replace are Palacios, Lennon, Modric (less so now that Kranjcar is establishing himself) and Gomes. For everyone else, even a player as excellent as King, we have cover. But when those players are missing, the overall team loses something.
 

gloryglory

Well-Known Member
Oct 19, 2004
1,537
302
Keane will have a run of 10 goals in 12 games at some stage after Christmas. You heard it here first. It's what he does - year in year out, last season aside, he finishes seasons on fire.
 
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