Just a question

[catlineker 11]

After all thats gone on this season the question i have in my head is how we might have gone with last years team/squad with Bassong added to it? Nothing else?

I didnt think that much was wrong last season, Bassong would have certainly improved what we had, Naughton was good. After a good start i dont think Garrido is any better than Tierney(he was awful at Craven Cottage but there are plenty that have had shockers this year and kept getting games)and think Russ Martin looks better at cb than Turner ever has.

Obviously goes without saying that midfiled/attack was significantly better

[chicken 0]

Ok so same squad as last year and we play R.Martin at centre back.

That would leave Francomb to play right back.

Turner is one of the unsung heroes this season, probably because of his shaky start. But R.Martin aside, last seasons defense wasn''t that great.

People were big about Whitbread, Ward had his chance too but no one was standout really.

I also love the fact that everyone bangs on about how we were one of the top scoring teams in the league last year but also miss out on the fact we were also one of the worse in terms of conceding outside of the bottom three.

If we wanted to progress up the league we needed to address that.

The problem is two fold though as our midfield was also lightweight at times last season. Again, Johnson aside we could get pushed about. Obviously if our main tactic was to counter attack and to try and beat the opposition with pure all out attack physical stature isn''t always a necessity.

But having said that we rode a knife edge a lot of the time last season. And if you look at the last third of the season you could argue that we were starting to get found out.

I still don''t think we have a good enough squad for us to be pushing with any real seriousness for a top half of the table finish.

As some have said we lack creativity. Even in a more traditional formation we still appear incredibly reliant upon Hoolahan to pull the strings.

Snodgrass and Pilkington are good but we appear to miss the balance Pilks gives us at the moment.

[Aggy 752]

I don''t think it would have made much of a difference. In the same way that this season the forwards aren''t really to blame as individuals for the lack of scoring (much more to do with the set up and creating less chances than last year), one individual last season wouldn''t have suddenly seen us keep loads of clean sheets. We didn''t give the defence any help whatsoever last year and so Bassong may have improved us very slightly, but not enough to drastically alter anything over the course of the whole season.