Salopian 1 Posted February 3, 2013 At the moment Snoddy must be one of the first names pencilled in each week on the team sheet, soon followed by the other three names, the defenders and Holt. We may be missing Pilks for a few games unless the prognosis turns out not to be so bad as feared. It looks as if Benno could be asked to fill in for him, because of his pace and because we are short of left-sided players. The alternative could be Wes, who played there earlier, but he would leave Garrido exposed. I am assuming that Tierney and Garrido would not be considered for wide midfield. What of the rest of the midfield? There is an absence of touch and creativity there, with passes frequently going astray. They perform a generally effective defensive barrier, but are not as good when it comes to defence-splitting passes. Howson, Surman and Fox are good creatively but not as good in defending. Butterfield is supposed to be good in both respects, but does not seem to impress CH. He is back with us, and it will be interesting to see if CH sends him out on loan again when the window opens. The other name is Whittaker, who played in the midfield fairly regularly in Scotland. If we play two strikers, and it''s a big "If", Holt and Becchio (and perhaps Kamara) should be good with crosses, and most of our goal attempts come from crossses, directly or indirectly. Goals which come from players released by incisive through balls are relatively few - remember those by Pilks released by Wes and Whittaker released by Snoddy? Other teams put us under pressure regularly by beautifully weighted through balls. Ultimately we shall have to sign a central midifielder or two who can supply both roles, - defender and creator, but we have what we have, and I think that CH may have to consider a change to boost our goal scoring. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites