Russell Must Start 2Moro

[Matt Morriss 69]

Surely the only player at the club who looks remotely like scoring at the moment should start against Blackpool....

[Thecanaryfan 0]

In place of Fotheringham hopefully. JC captain. We all know however, this wont happen.

[Here We Go 0]

 

Hopefully russel will start but have one of the defenders as captain, that Stefanovic looks like a good shout, someone who could lead with his feet.

[Shack Attack 0]

Agreed.

We can''t really get away with playing Clingan and Fotheringham in the centre of midfield as neither offers much of a goalscoring threat. I''m not a huge Russell fan but with the midfielders we have available at present he simply has to play.

[walks on water 0]

Would any of you fancy Rusty providing the presence up top instead of Jamie-boy ?

Or is it a bit too much like 5 in midfield .......and at home, just not cavalier enough ?

[Taxing 0]

[quote user="walks on water"]

Would any of you fancy Rusty providing the presence up top instead of Jamie-boy ?

Or is it a bit too much like 5 in midfield .......and at home, just not cavalier enough ?

[/quote]

 

I think playing Russell up front is an obvious and hopefully short term solution to the goal scoring problem. he scored two goals playing up front in a friendly. What formation was being used at the time and was anybody playing alongside him ? I was at the Cov match and I thought that with 20 mins to go, Russell should have replaced Cureton who I felt was struggling by that time and patterson should have gone into midfield.

[GJP 79]

I''d have him in central midfield alongside Clingan.

Can''t see him dropping Fozzie though.

[Belinda Carlisle 0]

[quote user="GJP"]

I''d have him in central midfield alongside Clingan.

Can''t see him dropping Fozzie though.

[/quote]

 

Clingan only seems to work in a diamond midfield... Fozzy and Rusty were good playing together last year, let''s play 4-4-2 with width and get into them.

 

[GJP 79]

Well I''ve liked what I''ve seen of Clingan and Rusty is more likely to get a goal so I''d give them two a try.

As I''ve said elsewhere Fozzie, in my opinion, is busy doing nothing.

 

[ZLF 334]

Have seen nothing in Rusty that makes me think he is worthy of a start.   He was avg last year and when that arsenal youngster went in central midfield instead of Russell there was no difference in the central midfield performance;  ie he was ineffective.  This call for russell feels like the prem and first relegation season - the solution to the teams problems was always the player who was not starting - brennan for drury was a common call - only to revert to the original when the performances were worse.

Central midfield is a partnership - who goes when and where needs time to develop that understanding naturally;  and the prefered pair need more that just two competetive games to gain that.  

Talk of Russell playing wide right in place of croft is also wrong - chadwick is the natural replacement there and imo the better option anyway.  If GR feels russel deserves a starting place it should be in his natural position (ie central midfield) or not at all,  not trying to shoe horn him into the time out of position.

[Tony Harrison 0]

[quote user="ZippersLeftFoot"]

 - chadwick is the natural replacement there and imo the better option anyway.  [/quote]

 

I honestly worry about chadwick whenever he plays for us. The poor chap always looks like his has only recently recovered from an extremely serious illness( liver failure/ebola)  or serious  F1 accident. Last season when that binman charged him into the hordings he did he not pick up about 8 different injuries and/or infections. I say this even in consideriation of how infectious and filthy any part of portman road must have been with all those binners shouting and spitting onto where he landed. Not really sure how good he is as I am usually just hoping he makes it through the game. Imagine him in a 50/50 with that paul robinson from WBA- he wouldn''t bottle it but we''d be picking little bits of him out of out hair.